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Vol. 1. No. 153. May 24, 1884. Subscription $30. 

Entered at the post-office N. Y. as Second-Class Matter. 
Munro's Library is issued Tri- Weekly, 

BERLIN 
SOCIETY 



TRANSLATED FROM THE 9TH. FRENCH EDITION. 

NEW YORK: 

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BERLIN SOCIETY 



BT 



/ 



COUNT PAUL VASILI. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE NINTH FRENCH EDITION 



BY JACOB ABARBANELL. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by Nor* 
man L. Munro, in the office of the Librrarian of 
Congress, at Washington, D. C. 




NEW YORK: 

NORMAN L. MUNRO, PUBLISHER- 

84 # 26 VANDKWATER ST. 



; A 1 



BERLIN SOCIETY, 

BY 



COUNT PAUL VASILI. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE NINTH FRENCH EDITION 

BY JACOB ABARBANELL. 



My Youthful Friend, — I received your letter of the 18th 
inst., in which you inform me of your entrance into the diplo- 
matic service, and your simultaneous appointment as attache at 
Berlin. The first part of your letter pleased me very much, the 
second not near so well. Berlin is not a good place to make one's 
debut. There are too many serious political questions discussed 
there and too little amusement for a young man of your age 
coming there entirely unknown. Society in Berlin is not very 
attractive to a stranger. The influential men are very reserved, 
the women either prudish or frivolous, and the young men are 
mainly good for nothing fellows. They dance a great deal there, 
a fact which will not please you very much; and understand very 
little about the delightful art of talking, which will not tend to 
increase your enthusiasm. Berljn, in short, is thoroughly pro- 
vincial. Nowhere do people malign each other more or intrigue 
against each other so much. Society is given up to petty jeal- 
ousies, and is continually hunting after scandals. People do 
not read, know very little, and outside of their own circles, take 
very little interest in the outside world. 

One must know society in Berlin very well to avoid losing 
oneself in it, or better still, one must be thoroughly acquainted 
with the different social circles which exist in Berlin, so as to be 
able to move in them with profit and pleasure. I fear you will 
have neither the time nor opportunity to study the character of 
the people with whom you will shortly live. 

You write me that you regret that you are coming to Berlin at 
the very moment in which I am leaving it never to return, and 
you desire me to lighten your first steps in your new sphere by 
sketching the portraits of a few of the persons you will meet 



2 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



there. I cannot see anything out of the way in this, it being 
self-understood that what follows is strictly confidential. 

I shall only write for your own instruction. I say to "in- 
struct" you and not to " convince" you — my way of thinking 
and observing shall not influence you in the least. You know I 
am prejudiced to a great degree and have very biased opinions. 
It may be possible that I am too severe and unjust as a whole, 
it will then be your duty to keep the right and the wrong apart. 

Do not look for any system in these letters. I shall write just 
as the whim seizes me. You know ray aversion to methodical 
classifications. As soon as I have two or three interesting letters 
together I will send them to you. Do not look for any specified 
dates. Hunting and my desire to enjoy a long awaited "life of 
uselessness " will cause me more than once to neglect my Berlin 
sketches. But I hope that just on this account you will place 
more worth on my letters, the more unexpected they arrive. 



FIRST LETTER. 

THE ROYAL FAMILY. 

The Emperor William is, without dispute, the most popular 
monarch among his people now living. 

Outside of his military successes, he is very amiable as a man, 
personally pleasing and very patriarchal in his goodness. With- 
out possessing extraordinary acuteness, he is gifted with a sharp 
insight and the talent to discover just those persons who will be 
most serviceable to him, pushing them fo/ward and maintaining 
them in their positions in spite of all opposition. He hasn't any 
personal vanity, hides behind the shadow of the Chancellor when 
necessary, and yet possesses sufficient dignity not to allow the 
world to perceive it, whenever he submits to the latter's author- 
itative will. He is ambitious, that kind of ambition which dis- 
plays itself in hankering after the possessions of one's neighbor. 
Morally he has the same appetite as physically. He always 
wants more than he has and even at this late day, still regrets 
that he didn't take Saxony in 1866. His principles and will are 
absolute. He has favorites, but he never allows them to have 
anything to do with politics, which is the, exclusive right of his 
ministers. 

Emperor William looks upon his son as incapable and imag- 
ines all Germany concurs with him on this point. He combines 
inordinate selfishness with pig-headed obstinancy. He busies 
himself with governmental affairs more than is generally sup- 
posed to be the case, whenever any question which concerns 
him personally comes up. In such instances he generally pushes 
his views through by means of his obstinacy. In everything 
else he relies on others. The army possesses in him a faithful 
defender, and this is the only department he has never allowed 
Prince Bismarck to meddle with. He has never approved of the 
crown prince's reign during the latter's regency in 1878. The 
Treaty of Berlin, in 1877, never pleased him. He would have 
preferred a smaller Bulgaria and was angry at the emancipation 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



8 



of the Jews in Roumania. These two points dissatisfied him very 
much, as he himself in a confidential moment told one of my 
friends. Was it because his advice in so important a matter was 
never asked ? Or is it his political conviction which causes him 
to deplore these two things ? 

He has always had luck in life, a luck which he has understood 
how to take advantage of. In public affairs he never speaks of 
politics, being exclusively a man of the world. His politeness is 
proverbial and not artificial. He knows he is indebted for every- 
thing to others, and is not ungrateful. On the other hand, he 
never allows any one to forget that his name covers every- 
thing that occurred. 

Take him all in all, he is an amiable person, open-hearted, not 
very intelligent, somewhat narrow-minded, full of tact and a man 
of heart. He is a man who can only gain the respect and sym- 
pathy of his subjects, and who wiU have a place among the 
great monarchs, without ever having been a great man. 

The Empress Augusta has been endowed by nature with a 
great deal of intelligence, but imagines she has more than is 
really the case. She has had faithful friends, devoted admirers, 
and bitter enemies. Those persons who intimate that she pos- 
sesses great common sense are mistaken, just as those who 
pretend she is malicious and dangerous. She is neither extra- 
ordinarily gifted, nor is she bad, but she is intriguing, menda- 
cious, and affected. She wishes at all hazards to play a part, 
poses as an aesthete so as to gull people into the belief that she is 
au fait in regard to all artistic and scientific things which occur 
in the world, at the same time endeavoring also to make herself 
popular with the people. But she has neither real dignity nor 
tact. She intrusts her secrets to her maid-of -honor, Madame von 
Heyndorff, who in company with several other ladies of the 
Berlin haute monde, makes capital out of them. She surrounds 
herself with courtiers and favorites, who behind her back are the 
first to speak ill of their protectress and benefactor. In reality 
a good-hearted woman, philanthropic in the extreme, she makes 
herself laughable through her constant efforts to appear 
great. Her heart is in the right place, her benevolence unceas- 
ing, nevertheless she does not understand the art of giving, but 
on the contrary, possesses a kind of talent to undo all her good- 
ness in this direction by the way in which she gives. Forcibly 
trying to appear amiable she generally achieves the opposite of 
what she intends. Upon the whole Very little liked, she has 
never been worthily respected. People do not believe either in 
her philanthropy or the other good sides of her character, which 
she actually has. She bores and bothers everyone from the em- 
peror down to the servants. An unhappy person, this empress, 
but only so through her own fault. Whenever she shall see fit 
to leave this world, people will breathe more freely — but later on 
a time will come w r hen she will be regretted. 

The Crow T n Prince Frederick William is not a man of action. 
He is a domestic man in the word's fullest sense. He lives only 
for his wife and adores his children — with the exception of his 
eldest son, whose intellectual superiority he fears. At the Couxt 



4 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



his political ideas are looked upon as dreams. His extraordinary 
admiration for the crown -princess has made a thorough English- 
man of him. For twenty-five years he has been in the position 
of a prince who expects from day to day to take the reins of the 
government in hand and is naturally irritated at the inferior po- 
sition in which he is kept. The emperor and Bismarck look upon 
him as a Utopist. He loves the arts, encourages the authors and 
I wouldn't be surprised if the character of Augustus were his 
ideal — only its the little Virgils he protects, the whole of whom 
joined together would not equal the great Virgil. When he 
ascends the throne, his [policy will be radically different from 
that of his father. For this reason he is the hope of all those 
who detest his father's internal and external policy. 

I think, however, they are mistaken. The prince will never 
know when to make up his mind or seize an idea at the right 
time. His manners are slightly cold and in spite of his refine- 
ment, one does not feel at home in his company. He is more 
confidential than amiable. His heart is really good, but those 
persons who know him intimately assert that should he become 
emperor, he never will be able to command more respect for him- 
self, than he does as crown-prince. He hasn't any ambition but 
a natural desire to reign . In spite of his enervation, he never 
forgets an insult. Under his reign Germany will have peace, and 
the greatest boon for France would be a long continuance of it. 
The army does not like him. In society, even those who are 
nearest to him, criticise his ability always from a political stand- 
point. He has been the basis of many unpleasant legends. His 
father fears him and tries as much as possible to hide him in the 
shade. The son very often resents such treatment. The coun- 
try thinks a great deal of the crown-prince, his own family very 
little. 

The crown princess is a woman of a variety of talents. She 
writes political memoirs, corresponds with philosophers and 
professors, sculptures, paints, composes sonatas, and makes 
architectural plans. She possesses great common sense, but her 
education is so universal, that it sometimes appears as if her ideas 
run away with her. Her vivacity occasionally disturbs the lu- 
cidity and harmony of her ideas. Their substance is so many- 
sided that she feels" a desire to crystallize them into maxims in 
the manner of La Eochefoucauld. Society doesn't bother her 
much. She does not love it, perhaps she even despises it, since 
one often sees at her parties people one does not meet any- 
where else and who only mix with society at her house. She 
doesn't do anything to secure the reputation of a society wom- 
an, but she has the instinct, one might say the pride, of her 
superior rank as a princess. She does not appear to place any 
faith in the strength and length of personal friendships. The 
least thing in the world is sufficient to cause her to despise peo- 
ple or break off relations whereas should the upholding or 
pushing through of an idea be at stake, she displays the great- 
est persistence. She concerns herself with politics and often 
has ideas diametrically opposed to those about her. She often 
goes to Italy under cover of her artistic impulses, in reality to 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



5 



escape from an awkward position or give up an idea. She is at 
heart very liberal, which is the greatest abuse which can be 
flung at her. Her relations with the empress are strained, 
but not so with the emperor. Through her influence and love 
she has great influence over her husband. 

Prince William, the eldest son of the crown-prince, is only 
twenty-four years old. It is hard to tell yet how he will turn 
out. One thing is certain and without dispute, viz., that he is a 
young man of intelligence, heart and head, and has a future. He 
is the most intelligent of all the imperial princes; besides being 
brave, enterprising, ambitious, a hot head but a heart of gold, 
sympathetic in the highest degree, and possessing a vivacity of 
disposition and flow of language surprising in a German. He 
adores the army, which returns the admiration. In spite of his 
youth he has understood how to make himself popular in all cir- 
cles of society; he instructs himself, reads, is continually mak- 
ing plans for the benefit of his country and possesses a wonder- 
ful acquaintance with politics. He will certainly become a 
splendid fellow and probably a great monarch. Prussia will, 
perhaps, find in him a second Frederick the Great, but without 
the latter's skepticism. He is endowed with a fund of humor 
and geniality, which in a great measure obliterates the traces of 
the Hohenzollern in him. In the first place, he will be a king 
himself, he will not allow himself to be led, he will have sound 
opinions, prompt decision, energetic action and a strong will. 
When he shall have reached the throne, he will continue the 
work of his grandfather, and undo whatever work his father 
shall have done. The enemies of Germany will have a formida- 
ble opponent in him, he will perhaps be the Henry IV. of his 
country. His greatest fault is a too great affection for women. 
He has a number of mistresses, and he can fall into the hands of 
a favorite who will ruin his policy. His wife is too insignificant 
to have the slightest influence over so tempestuous a nature; he 
neglects her even now, and will soon leave her entirely to her- 
self, as she hasn't any attractive allurements to speak of. It is 
not improbable that he will ever fall into the net of some intel- 
lectual woman, but so far his different liaisons have not borne 
any fruits. Should he go on forming connections in the lower 
classes of society, nothing dangerous will occur. But should he 
one day attract the attention of a lady of high class society then 
we must regard his actions with alarm and base our opinion of 
him from this side. 



SECOND LETTER. 

PRINCES AND PRINCESSES. 

The Princess Augusta Victoria, wife of Prince William, is so 
insignificant that it would be useless to describe her other than 
that she does her duty perfectly, and Prussia need never fear 
for crown princes so long as she lives. A few scandalmongers 
assert her character could be more amiable — but this is merely 
the result of her interesting condition at times, and not a part of 



6 BERLIN SOCIETY. 

her nature. Although not handsome, she is interesting; modest 
and not yet used to the ways of the great world, she nevertheless 
inspires esteem. The relations between the young couple are 
friendly without being affectionate. The prince likes to amuse 
himself, but this is natural in a person not yet 25 years of age, 
and a future imperial crown is sufficient recompense to a prin- 
cess of Schleswig for the marital infidelities of her husband. 

Prince Frederick Charles, the nephew of the emperor, of whom 
so much was written in 1870, does not in a way justify the noise 
made about him. He does not possess a single talent. He is 
simply a good and brave soldier, and one of the worst rowdies in 
existence in private life. His greatest virtue is the art of listen- 
ing well. Through great study a tactician and generally feared 
on account of brutality, he has no other passions than drink and 
hunting. He lives in retirement at his hunting-box Dreilinden, 
hates society and is only happy in the society of a few friends, all 
good drinkers, and in whose company he can indulge all his 
passions without restraint. It is even said that he is more 
than brutal toward his wife, a pretty woman full of kindness and 
talent, who combines intelligence with goodness, who is grateful 
for the slightest courtesy, but who unfortunately is afflicted with 
a deafness, which in no small degree accounts for her husband's 
aversion to her. With the exception of the prince's personal 
friends they do not receive any company. Society, bored by 
the princess' deafness and revolted by the prince's brutality, 
avoids them. 

Prince Albrecht of Prussia assumes in the royal family the 
position of a ball-room in a fine dwelling. He is tall, quite 
imposing:, and represents his country, wherever necessary, with 
great eclat. Baptisms, marriages, crownings, funerals, every- 
where where the presence of a Hohenzollern, either from polite- 
ness or policy toward other reigning houses is necessary, one 
sees him in his blue dragoon uniform, his head erect, his face 
without a spark of intelligence, but full of martial power. Out- 
side of these affairs, he lives in Hanover, where he is as 
secluded as a golden coach in a stable. He's a good fellow, a 
perfect husband, a loving father, and a prince similar to those 
we see every day, neither better nor worse than the others, 
enjoying his position, and without the vanity to imagine that 
fate might not have brought; him to the world in a different 
way. * 

Besides the persons above described, there are several other 
members of the royal family, but they are too insignificant to be 
mentioned here. Amongst others, Princess Charlotte of Mein- 
ingen, the eldest daughter of the crown prince. Outside of the 
fact that she is young, pretty, coquettish, and married to a man 
she does not deserve, there is nothing to be said of her. 

As for the Prince and Princess of Hohenzollern, I am not 
quite sure whether they can be counted as members of this 
illustrious family, although the emperor counts them as such. 
This couple occupy a peculiar position. 

Before his marriage the Prince of Hohenzollern lived in Berlin 
on his income, went in good and bad society, had several liason s 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



known throughout the city, in short led a bachelor's life in the 
largest sense of the word. People looked upon him as of so little 
account that when he married his wife wasn't able to assert her 
rank. Then the empress interposed, took the princess under her 
protection, gave her a maid-of-honor and commanded that she be 
treated as a princess of the blood. This decision of the empress 
created a perfect sensation in Berlin. The whole band of femi- 
nine blue blood princesses refused to give the Princess Louise 
precedence, maintaining that a princess of Thurn and Taxis had 
no such right, forgetting that the Hohenzollern-Signanngens 
are cousins of the emperor. After a great many struggles and 
objections, they were forced at length to give in, but the poor 
princess nevertheless was forced to undergo a good many in- 
sults, to atone for the concessions made in her favor. She was 
found to be ugly, awkward, proud, repulsive and even to-day, 
four years afterward, is still unforgiven for the social position 
she acquired through marriage. Envy still clings to the heels of 
the young woman, who is just as amiable as handsome, just as 
intelligent as good, in a word, the living incarnation Df attract- 
iveness, intelligence and beauty. In spite of these advantages 
Princess Frederick of Hohenzollern cannot be counted as one of 
earth's happy beings; she undoubtedly knows and discerns the 
hate and jealousy which surround her, for she lives very retired 
and only sees a few nersons, crowded and hemmed in by a strict 
etiquette, whose victim she is, though she is accused of keeping 
it in existence. 



THIED LETTER. 

THE COURT. 

There is absolutely nothing attractive in the immediate sur- 
roundings of the emperor. It is a collection of sapless and 
dried-up mummies. The court, as at present constituted, pro- 
duces the impression of a museum of pieces of old furniture. 
People have become used to always finding the same persons in 
the same place. When one sees, at a grand evening reception, 
the emperor pass by, preceded by a whole escort of lame veter- 
ans, and followed by a troupe of younger persons, who, how- 
ever, are already anxious, by every effort of art, to conceal the 
ineradicable ravishes of the years, one cannot help admiring this 
king, who has known how to use up two generations in his 
service, and nevertheless to remain so robust and fresh. 

Physical exhaustion — that may pass: we can pardon it in the 
old parade-horses who surround their emperor. But we cannot 
help being exasperated at the tricks of these favorites, who are 
not favorites ai all, and who abuse not the affection of their 
sovereign, but simply his common generosity to snatch all sorts 
of favors, this one a title, that one a decoration, etc., etc., etc. 
Each one assumes the right to set aside whoever is in his way, 
and to watch over the monarch in an impudent and presump- 
tuous manner, as if he were a piece of property belonging to 
him. The empeior himself is not aware of these little tricks; 
he is determined to keep and to retain his old servants around 



8 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



him, and although he is too selfish to miss them much if they 
are taken from him by death, he does not wish to be separated 
from the living, however little serviceable they may be. In this 
way, Count Puckler still remains at the head of the royal house- 
hold, and Count Perponcher, court-marshal, though the former 
is nearly blind, and the latter — but it is better not to say too 
much about the latter, anyway. 

The emperor's personal service consists of six aides-de-camp. 
Two of them, Count Lehndorff and Prince. Antoine Kadziwill, are 
already generals and yet have not left their posts since fifteen 
years, if not longer. I will speak of the latter, more in detail, in 
another letter. As to the former he is an ex-Lovelace, a former 
professional lady-killer who enjoyed the favor of almost all the 
beauties of Berlin. Intellectually a cipher, inordinately vain and 
radically selfish, he had nevertheless known how to please, thanks 
to his handsome figure and arrogant self-conceit. He is not an 
evil-minded person; yet he has more than once done mischief — 
sometimes through want of delicacy, at other times through 
heedlessness. He has known how to retain the emperor's favor; 
he has even accomplished that the emperor paid his debts with- 
out anybody ever discovering the reason why. His position at 
court is so fixed and all mothers with eligible daughters fought 
for him in spite of his stormy past. Suddenly, however — about 
two years ago — to the despair of a number of young ladies and 
of a fascinating widow who was so sure of being married to 
him that she had already prepared a study for him, the count 
offered his hand in marriage to Miss Margaret von Kanitz, a 
young, twenty-year-old, beautiful and amiable girl, but so insig- 
nificant that she was the last thought of to enslave such an old 
libertine. The wedding came off and so far the Lehndorff house- 
hold is one of the happiest on earth. < « 

The four other aides-de-camp of the emperor count equally 
little in influence and prominence. Only one makes an excep- 
tion, Prince Henry XVIII. of Eeuss, a handsome man, a brave 
hunter, a favorite in society, amiable, good-natured, a little awk- 
ward, slightly conceited, but nevertheless a man of success, who 
has courted many women and who to-day assumes the mien of 
one satiated and disgusted with love. He is occasionally sar- 
castic by accident, haughty, and not without aversion in his 
sympathies as well as in his antipathies; and this aversion, as a 
very skilled conversationalist, he can express in the best way. 
He is a favorite of Prince William, and it will not take long for 
him to also become a favorite of the emperor in whose retinue 
he has been only since a few months. * 

General von Albedyll, the chief of the military cabinet, is one 
of the most hated personages in all Prussia. His official position 
makes him a sort of awful being, for on him depend all army 
appointments and promotions. He is a good, somewhat easy- 
natured man who, through fear of making enemies among those 
who have already reached the goal, makes all the more bitter 
ones among those who are still on the upward path. The young 
officers curse him on account of his mania to keep people in their 
positions — a mania which paralyzes all army promotion. 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



9 



There has never been in Germany so many old generals with 

Ealsied arms and limping feet, nor so many lieutenants who 
ave grown gray with anger as lieutenants. I don't know 
whether it is true or not, but Herr von Albedyll is accused of 
causing this state of affairs, and on the day on which he re- 
ceives the command of an army corps, the camp-fires in all the 
regimental barracks will be lighted for joy. He is personally 
very polite and amiable — but a man of false character, like all 
Prussians from the eastern part of the kingdom. . He has favor- 
ites whom he forcibly puts in positions — something which in a 
man in his position, and with his influence, is akin to a lack of 
justice. The emperor is greatly attached to him, and prizes 
his devotion. Society receives him in the person of his wife, 
who is really a charming woman. She is a sister of the hand- 
some Duchess of Manchester. Less brilliant and handsome than 
her elder sister, she possesses a more serious character. Madame 
von Albedyll is, above all, good, candid and friendly. She has 
enemies — but they are enemies who only tend to do her honor. 

The court of the empress consists of the chief lady of the 
court, two ladies of the palace, a court-marshal, a private 
secretary, and various maids of honor and chamberlains who re- 
lieve each other according to the exigencies of the service. 

The chief lady of the court, Countess Perponcher, the sister- 
in-law of the similarly named court-marshal of the emperor, is 
an affable woman and a iady of very high degree. Pleasant and 
polite, she performs the duties of her position in an admirable 
and always obliging manner; she is distinguished for nothing 
except an enormous black wig which rises up from the top of her 
head like a tower; she is as insignificant as she is kind and oblig- 
ing. She gives receptions, which are a trifle more cheerful than 
a funeral, but invitations to which are nevertheless eagerly 
sought for, for the reason that at these receptions one can crowd 
against all the royal and princely highnesses in Berlin. 

Of the two ladies of the palace, one, the Countess Adelaide 
Hacke, is a hunchback, and has the spite if not the intelligence 
which generally marks these freaks of nature. She has great 
influence with the empress, whom af times she treats rather 
wickedly. She is her majesty's alter ego, the person who rep- 
resents her on all possible occasions. She loves intrigue, ex- 
citement and noise. Her soft, low voice has something false 
and artificial about it. She says " My dear " to everybody, dis- 
plays the look and demeanor of £ Madonna, in which, with her 
figure, she is not particularly successful, and, at the same time, 
she secretly and stealthily attacks the honor of this person, 
slanders that one, invidiously hints at the faults of Madame X, 
calls attention to Madame A's foibles, and spreads right and left 
the poison of her shameful insinuations and the seeds of her in- 
sulting suspicions. She is evil-minded without herself being en- 
tirely conscious of it, and speaks ill of everybody, not through 
deliberate spite, but because it is her nature, which, condemned to 
ugliness, cannot permit the beautiful in her fellow-beings to pass 
unchallenged. 

Her colleague, the Countess Louise Oriolla, it is said, was 



10 



BERLIN SOCIETY, 



beautiful in her youth. The emperor himself, it seems, once slight- 
ly courted her and occasionally does so still, on account of his 
respect for whatever has come down from the past. The em- 
press has no particularly great affection for her, and the 
countess would, without doubt, be glad if her imperial mistress 
were to die, as she cherishes in her heart a vague hope that the 
emperor, if this obstacle were removed, could be induced to 
imitate the example which his father once gave in connection 
with the creation of the Princess of Liegnitz. Countess Oriolla, 
though apparently the personification of good nature, is never- 
theless always happy when accident removes the veil from some 
or other evil habit or fault of her friends. When she lets loose her 
malicious darts, a cool, sardonic smile hovers around her lips, 
which involuntarily reminds one of Mephistopheles' taunts. 
She is a favorite in society, where everything is, as a rule, judged 
superficially; neither the black baseness nor the jealousy is there 
perceived, which occasionally induces the exalted lady of the 
palace to descend with her foot into the gutter in order to fling 
the mud at others. 

Herr von Knesebeck, the empress' private secretary, is a slim 
little man, sickly, and though only thirty years of age, already 
bald; he is smart and cunning, and knows how to extricate 
himself from the most embarrassing complications with sur- 
prising ability. He is well educated, well read, a good talker, 
could, at a pinch, also manage an intrigue, and exercises an 
influence over his mistress which is none the less existent because 
it is not always perceptible. 

He has many enemies among those who believe themselve 
penetrated by his keen glance, but he knows how to return them 
a hundred-fold the annoyances which they would like to pre- 
pare for him. A close observer, he at once guesses the wishes, 
hopes, and ambitious desires of all the parasites that swarm 
around the empress, some to obtain a good word spoken in 
public, others to receive a Chinese pot or a Japanese vase to dec- 
orate their parlors. The young secretary inscribes in his 
memory every sign of greediness, every act of baseness, every 
sycophancy of which he is daily the witness, and even if he 
does not, at the moment, make use of them against the person, 
he carefully stores them up in his mind. The result of these ex- 
periences is a contempt for mankind which increases every day, 
and which makes him the living contrast to Count Nesselrode, 
the chief chamberlain of the empress' court, a worthy man, too 
narrow-minded to seek out his neighbors' faults, and too in- 
different to worldly matters to bother himself about them, 
whether good or bad. He is the father of a daughter, who, 
though not handsome, is very amiable, and of a son who is in 
the Uhlan Guards. 

I will not close this chapter without speaking a word more 
about Miss von Heyndorff, the first maid-of-honor of the 
empress. She is really an influential person, who knows all the 
secrets of her sovereign, writes her private letters, superintends 
her commissions and imagines she is devotedly attached to her, 
though in reality injuring her greatly by her indiscretions and 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



It 



intrigues. All the court ladies who desire to retain the friend- 
ship of the empress flatter her, vbile she, merely to please her 
vanity, allows a countess or princess to cool her heels in her 
ante chamber. More a friend than a maid-ol'-honor of her 
sovereign, she combines the servility of the servant with the 
loving and at the same time insufferable tyranny of a confidante, 
who knows she cannot be sent away because she is feared. The 
empress only sees through her eyes and allows herself to be in- 
fluenced through her cunning, to such a degree, which is the 
more dangerous to her dignity, since Miss von Heyndorff, like 
all persons in such a position, has neither the tact nor the 
smartness to keep her position as a confidential adviser secret. 



FOURTH LETTER. 

THE EMPRESS' FRIENDS. 

The Empress Augusta loves society and could not live without 
it. Her active nature is continually on the alert for some at- 
traction, and at present, since her illness makes it impossible for 
her to leave her chair, she has no other distraction than the so- 
ciety of her intimate friends. From time immemorial she gen- 
erally invited five or six persons two or three times a week to 
spend the evening by her. These small teas now take place 
daily. The emperor appears toward the close of the same for a 
few moments, and puts, through his presense, a little life into 
these parties, which are usually very solemn and during which, 
under the pretense to converse, one drinks tea and eats oranges. 
The empress tries to sustain a conversation, but this doesn't al- 
ways meet with success, in face of the hauteur and sleepiness of 
her guests, who bore themselves to death, without admitting the 
fact to each other, so penetrated are they with the honor of hav- 
ing been invited by her majesty. It is only when the Duke and 
Duchess of Sagan are in Berlin that these tea-parties are infused 
with a little life. The duke, the type of a French nobleman of 
the eighteenth century, is well liked at court. He is a jovial old 
man, very vivacious and youthful for his age, and besides a 
courtier worthy of living in the reign of Louis XIV. 

Understanding the art of flattering without saying too much 
or too little, he is witty, without being very shrewd, superfi- 
cially educated, with the* manners of a grand seigneur and pos- 
sessing great knowledge of the world. His greatest pleasure is 
to compliment the ladies and adore crowned heads. Formerly 
he was quite successful with the fair sex. 

To tell the truth he is a charming egotist, always of the opin- 
ion of the person he is speaking to, a little penetrated with the 
brilliancy of his name, position and fortune, an unrivaled giver 
of banquets, who sometimes makes use of his genius to invent 
new models for the livery of his servants. He protects and ad- 
vances those who flatter him, but he will never pursue those who 
criticise and attack him. He is always what the occasion re- 
quires, a Frenchman in Paris, he becomes a Prussian the mo- 
ment he arrives at Berlin, transforming himself into the reign- 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



ing Duke of Sagan in his Silesian possessions, having shortly 
before, on treading the ground at Valencay, metamorphosed him- 
self into the nephew of the great Talleyrand. His wife, the 
widow from her first marriage of Count Maximilian von Hatz- 
feld, is the daughter of the celebrated Castellane. She has in a 
measure inherited the soldier manners of her father. The won- 
derfully wise and witty woman is a type one seldom sees. Her 
thoroughly manly manners are so outspoken that they would 
never be tolerated in any one but her. With great freedom of 
speech, she tells every one, without respect to persons, friends, 
enemies or relations, whatever comes into her head; no coarse- 
ness of language can frighten her in the least; she slaughters 
human beings with one word with the same sang froid with 
which she kills the stags and boars in her Silesian forests. It is 
impossible to bore oneself in her presence; she would animate a 
statue with life, by the way in which she would recount its 
faults. Nothing ridiculous escapes her, no weakness of a neigh- 
bor is spared her malicious irony. 

In spite of all this she is a good woman, capable if necessary 
of displaying the great lady, preserving her fine manners even in 
her roughness, incapable of hurting any one intentionally, cruel 
without being wicked, and pardonable for her sarcasms through 
her wit. From her first marriage the duchess has six children, 
none of whom confer any honor upon her; from the second she 
possesses a daughter, Miss Dorothea von Talleyrand, who is 
married to the eldest son of Prince Furstenberg. This daughter 
is a pretty girl, who inherited her mother's intelligence but not 
her wit. 

True to her principles of protecting the semi-strangers, the 
empress honors the Countess Louise von Benckendorf, widow of 
the Emperor Nicholas of Russia's aid-de-camp, with her especial 
friendship. The countess is by birth a princess of Croy. She 
has remained German, and the only thing Russian about her is 
the decoration of Saint Katherine t She is the type of a reigning 
sovereign such as are depicted in the Gotha peerage; her ideal is 
a rank at some imperial or royal court; her greatest happiness to 
inhale the same air as a king. She is regarded to be very smart, 
though in reality she is only intriguing. She is well equipped 
for society, since she knows every one, has traveled a great deal, 
and has the alpha and omega of drawing-room talk at her fingers' 
ends. At a dinner she fills the place of honor admirably, and 
therefore is well pleased that it; is reserved for her. At a dis- 
tance she looks like a matron of high rank — when close to her 
one sees a hanging mouth, from which, between two broken 
teeth still remaining, the spittle runs, which produces a revolting 
feeling. Take her all in all she is a very ambitious, proud and 
jealous woman, who is apt to become dangerous in case her 
vanity or pride is attacked. Her eldest daughter, who is married 
to Prince von Hatzfeld-Trachenberg, is similar to her in more 
than one point, but knows how to hide her faults under the 
charm of her youth and beauty. 

One of the most fervent admirers of the Countess von Benck- 
endorf is General Count Goltz, the brother of the former 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



13 



embassador afc Paris, who enjoyed to such a high degree the 
favor of the Empress Eugenie. Count Goltz, one of the em- 
peror's aid-de-camps, was, thirty years ago, one of the gilded 
youths of Berlin, and still pays his attentions to both old and 
young women, recalling in this way memories of his stormy 
youth. He is a brave man, who would possess intelligence if 
he wasn't so abstracted. As long as he keeps awake his conversa- 
tion is both amusing and interesting, and he regales the empress 
by detailing the daily scandals that occur. 

Then there is Count William von Pourtales. In former times 
he was very interesting; but lately, late hours, drink, and ballet 
dancers have done their duty and marked him with that stamp 
which betrays those persons prematurely old through riotous 
living. The count was always egotistical, amiable only to those 
who were useful to him, stiff and condescending to the rest of 
the world. At present the old beau is only a ruin, and he speaks 
now from habit, without knowing what he says. At night, in 
society, he sleeps in company with Count Goltz; but the latter, 
at least, keeps one eye open, so as to follow the movements of 
the sovereign; when he speaks his mouth repeats the same com- 
monplace flatteries, which at one time were said with spirit, 
but now are spoken in such a tone that one imagines it a ma- 
chine. Of his passions of former times he still retains the 
desire for good eating, and a rage for collecting bric-a-brac and 
pictures. He owns a splendid collection. His house in Uni- 
versity street is admirably decorated and furnished. The court- 
yard is a little museum in itself. Nevertheless, this courtyard, 
with its glass covering, is the cause of one of the greatest dis- 
appointments which has ever happened to Count Pourtales. He 
always hoped the empress would visit him, and, to save trouble, 
he caused two carriage-ways to be laid out when he built his 
house so that the empress' carriage could turn around in the 
courtyard itself. But alas! in spite of the two carriage-ways, 
neither the count nor the architect noticed that the courtyard 
was too small to allow a carriage to turn around in it. The old 
courtier, on the completion of his house, had to give up the wish 
of his life. After a deluge of sighs, he determined to resign 
himself to his fate, wherein he was supported by his splendid 
cook. 

Besides the persons sketched above, the little parties of the' 
empress are visited by the Chief Master of Ceremonies, Count; 
August Eulenburg; Chief Lord-in-Waiting, Count William von 
Redern; his brother and sister-in-law, and several insignificant: 
persons. 

Count Eulenburg, who, before he became chief master of cer- 
emonies, was court-marshal of the crown prince, is a very 
courteous and pleasant gentleman, who, in spite of his onerous 
position, has made friends all over, even with those whose right 
of precedence he was often obliged to refuse. The office he holds 
is not^ by any means a sinecure, at least not in a country like 
Prussia and in a city like Berlin, where no one is anxious to se- 
cure a place, even the best one in heaven, so long as there is a 
German Empire in existence. In the time of Count Eulenburgs 



14 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



predecessor, every court ball was the scene of constant bickerings 
and jealousies between envious women; the count has put an 
end to all this. He combines courtesy with steadfastness and 
knows how to command respect for his official proclamations. 
Careful and conscientious man, never losing command over him- 
self, and, besides, a man of tact, he will never do anything noc 
absolutely necessary. His intelligence is very mediocre, but be 
understands how to hide his deficiencies in this respect. His 
brother, who was for a short time minister of the interior, has 
more intelligence than he, but less tact and composure. His 
position with the crown prince, owing to the enmity of the 
crown princess, was a difficult one, and it is said he was heartily 
glad when he was called to do other duties. Count Eulenburg 
is married to a charming lady, who is loved and admired by all 
those who come in contact with her. 

The Chief Lord-in- Waiting, Count William Redern, is an old 
gentleman seventy-five years of age, who nevertheless, is still hale 
and hearty, and who can be seen any day between two and four 
in the afternoon promenading in the park. He is a brave man, 
enormously rich, at one time full of vivacity and life, a great 
musician, thoroughly an fait in regard to all art matters, cordial 
to everybody, and in quite an eccentric way at loggerheads with 
his nephew and heirs, who discount the riches of thpir dear uncle 
in advance. Count William has occupied himself with literature, 
and a year ago published some memoirs which caused a commo- 
tion among some people, notably his brother Henry. This brother 
is the greatest scandal-monger that ever existed. He has no 
sympathy with any one, is not abashed by any sorrow he may 
cause and is deaf to all entreaties whenever some scandalous 
rumor is set afloat. He is the incarnation of a spiteful tongue 
and bores people besides through his stammering and endless 
explanations. He is despised in society as well as feared, and 
would not be tolerated any more were it not for his wife, by 
birth a Princess Odescalchi, a charming old lady, who is just the 
opposite of her husband. The Countess Victoria von Redern is 
one of the most respected women in Berlin. Her drawing-room 
which is open every evening is one of the few places in the 
county of Brandenburg where the art of conversing is under- 
stood. She combines geniality with intelligence, which, though 
limited, is still sufficient and is very lucid and just. Her only 
weakness is her extreme affection for her only son, a good-for- 
nothing gambler and spendthrift, who has filled all the large 
cities of Europe with the noise of his scandalous adventures. 
The countess is not blind to these facts, but nevertheless her heart 
is open to her wayward son. 

Beyond the above named persons, the empress does not receive 
any one in her intimate circle. During Lent she gives concerts 
every Thursday to which all society persons in regular order are 
admitted. Her life is spent in the company of the same persons, 
hearing the same opinions, more or less submitting to the in- 
fluences of these persons, the same vain, interesting or flatter- 
ing personages, among whom some sympathetic occurrence 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



fs 



takes place, which, without the empress being aware of it, is 
poured into her ear. 



FIFTH LETTER. 

THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR. 

So much has already been written and said about Prince Bis- 
marck that it is only with extreme reluctance that I approach 
the subject. What can be said of a man who has in turn been 
described in history, legends and fables ? For fifteen years the 
chancellor has been placed before the public gaze in every con- 
ceivable way. His politics have been held up to our admiration, 
his person despised, his activity as a minister looked upon with 
fear. Herr Busch has even attempted to introduce us into the 
private life of the Colossus, and show us a Bismarck in slippers 
and smoking jacket. And yet none of these attempts have suc- 
ceeded, and the prince is still a riddle to those persons who have 
attempted to form some idea of his character. Even his most 
intimate friends have not been able to penetrate into the secret 
of this wonderful man, who is great through his reason, danger- 
ous through his genius, superior to Machiavelliin shrewdness and 
evershadowing Richelieu in his contempt for men. 

To tell the truth, the chancellor doesn't know himself thor- 
oughly, he doesn't know to-day. what he will do on the morrow, 
and since years, controlling the world's affairs, he allows him- 
self to be led by circumstances. The great secret of his success 
lies in the rapidity with which he changes his opinions, forsakes 
his friends, pays court to his enemies, and draws capital from 
the quarrels and bickerings of all. His elastic conscience knows 
no remorse, his soul has no other ambition than to have absolute 
power over men and things, kings and nations. It's Medea's 
big " I " that circulates in his life; he has seen how the fate of 
rulers and nations concentrated themselves in his person that he 
has finally gone so far as to forget that he is not yet the ruler of 
the whole world. This is the reason why he destroys everything 
which is not himself, everything which does not blindly obey 
him, everything which opposes or crosses his path . Once— but 
that is some time ago — Bismarck was ambitions for his people, 
anxious to secure for Prussia the first place amongst European 
nations — to-day this ambition has disappeared to make room for 
a wild desire to secure his own personal sovereignty. Just as 
active as be once was for his king, he is now, since that king be- 
came emperor, anxious to hinder him from taking the slightest 
interest in the business of the state. The German empire un- 
doubtedly owes its existence to the courageous chancellor, who 
founded, strengthened and united it, but now that this colossal 
work is finished, he cannot persuade himself to allow it to blos- 
som and ripen internally. He wants to retain absolute power 
over the empire for himself, and this in a measure explains the 
constant changes in the policy of this man of " blood and iron," 
which have so often created surprise. 

Everything degenerates through constant use, and the energy 
of the chancellor has become obstinacy and rage. He has be- 



16 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



come so accustomed to enforcing his wishes, that he thinks it 
his right to force all persons to bow to his will. Naturally of an 
aggressive disposition, which shows itself in a great many ec- 
centric ideas, now that his favorite plans have all been fulfilled, 
he contents himself with following the impulses of the moment 
just as the occasion demands. The chancellor only governs yet 
because he has known how to make himself feared, and very 
often his opponents ascribe measures which they fear most to 
him, whereas in reality they themselves, without knowing it, 
have played thus into his hands. Nevertheless, just as he stands, 
the chancellor is a great historical figure, especially if seen at a 
distance and on the pedestal upon which future ages will place 
him. But, when examined closely, one discerns his smallness, his 
narrow-mindedness, and his forgetfulness of the interests which 
have been intrusted to him. Bismarck, from time immemorial, 
has always striven to have the world bow before him, and to at- 
tain this object he has not scrupled to employ every means in 
his power. One of the most formidable sides of his nature is the 
capacity with which he sees through people, whose weak spots 
he grasps at once, flatters them, draws them to his side and uses 
them for his own purposes. In the moment when one despises 
people, one is able to govern them, for only then is one able to 
know what one can ask or receive from them. 

The prince is cynical and skeptical. As soon as he discovers 
that the conscience of a person is not secure, he attempts to pur- 
chase it, and in nine out of ten cases he succeeds, since men are 
cowards and can be bought by those who desire to have them. 
A great deal has been said about the extensive plans of the chan- 
cellor; his correspondence recently published was cited as an in- 
stance of how everything he has done has been calculated 
beforehand. For my part, I firmly believe that he has profited 
by circumstances, and having arrived at power, has only sought 
to establish his own authority. Later on his higher ambition 
developed itself; he remembered the dreams of his youth, and 
wished after his own triumphs to strengthen those of his coun- 
try. Since then he has tried to surround himself with a halo of 
glory in the eyes of the world, by making it believe that he owes 
his successes not to circumstances but to previous plans which 
he has triumphantly carried through by reason of his invincible 
will-power. e 

Few statesmen have had so many enemies, and none has been 
able with so sure a hand to brush them aside. But, to tell the 
truth, he must be credited with the knowledge of getting rid in 
this way not only of his enemies; his friends must suffer the 
same fate exactly as soon as they begin to be bothersome to him 
or even wearisome. It is positive that he is terrible in his hate, 
ungovernable in his wrath, and pitiless in his revenge. It is 
known what he has been for Count Arnim, and one need only 
remember Herr Delbruck, Count Stolberg, Count Eulenberg — 
all those of his former friends and co-workers who happened to 
displease him, and whom, with wonderful ability, he managed to 
put aside, expel, destroy, in short banish forever from the polit- 
ical or parliamentary arena. By turns on friendly terms with 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



11 



all political parties, he has used up each one of them, only to 
finally rob it, through its alliance with him, of all public respect; 
an able tactician, he understands how to make the triumph of 
others his own; he has the talent to continue this somewhat diffi- 
cult task to the end. One of his favorite tricks is to get hold of 
some ambitious and spiteful aspirant, and to pretend that the lat- 
ter has all the material in him for the making of a great man. 
The victim falls into the snare with unvarying accuracy, and, in 
this way, the prince has captured a certain number of ' 6 lost souJs" 
who serve him with love and adoration, and who naively imagine 
that they are indispensable to him, while, in fact, they are only 
useful, and whom he flatters only in order to be able, later on, 
when he thinks it proper, to brush them from him all the more 
thoroughly. 

His conduct toward the emperor is very peculiar. Although 
as a rule he pretends to have the highest respect for the venera- 
ble sovereign, he nevertheless occasionally faces him like a real 
autocrat. Here, too, as everywhere, he takes advantage of the 
weaknesses within his range. He knows how to make every 
sensitive chord throb in the heart of his monarch, whose love for 
Prussia and its glory is so honest and sincere, that he would sac- 
rifice himself for them if necessary. 

When one sees the two face to face, the chancellor's powerful 
figure exceeding that of his king's by almost a head's length — 
the question involuntarily arises, which of the two is the ruler 
of the other, which has served his country most; he who, in a 
spirit of self-denial, has known how to step into the shade, or he 
who has made his Fatherland great and mighty only to crush it 
with the weight of his own person ? 

The Empress Augusta could never bear the prince. In former 
times, in the circle of her intimate friends and favorites, she 
even intrigued against him; but experience soon taught her 
that she could not fool with such a harsh adversary. At the 
present moment the two enemies face each other in a condition 
of armed neutrality; as they cannot tear and devour each other, 
they watch each other at a distance — both equally determined 
to renew hostilities at the slightest opportunity. 

Meanwhile all these passions of hate heaped up around him, 
these floods of execrations continually dashing against his 
person have not been without their influence on Prince Bis- 
marck. They have made him a man-hater, or, at least, have 
filled him with disgust of worldly affairs and infused in him a 
marked preference for solitude. He lives like a hermit, con- 
fined within the four walls of his palace, aloof from every- 
body's eyes, his friends as well as his foes, only showing himself 
from time to time in Parliament, or approachable by a person 
from whom he wishes to be informed about something. In such 
cases he can be even amiable, gossips and becomes a sociable com- 
panion, so much so as to enchant every one who does not know 
him or does not guess his object. Apart from these opportunities, 
nobody gets a sight of the chancellor, who confines himself 
more and more in the bosom of his family, which, in truth, 
surround him with the fondest devotion. 



18 



BERLIN SOCIETY, 



Princess Bismarck is a good, worthy creature, very little aris- 
tocratic in her manners, but very kind-hearted and with much, 
if not very fine, intelligence. She has an unbounded admiration 
for her husband, and treats him with an affection as deep as it is 
sincere. At the same time she is not at all proud of her position, 
she is affable, though somewhat hasty, amiable toward every- 
body, though well aware of the enmity of this one or the hypo- 
critical expressions of devotion of the other; she scorns the former 
and places no reliance on the latter. 

Two sons and a daughter are the issue of this union. Of the sons, 
the elder, Count Herbert Bismarck, has created a great deal of gos- 
sip through his scandalous relations with a young lady, famous 
for her beauty and moving in the highest circles of Berlin society. 
He played a blameworthy part in this sad affair, and showed 
himself equally selfish, cruel, and weak. He is very vain and 
very much busied with his own person; conceited to the last de- 
gree on account of being the son of the imperial chancellor, and, 
otherwise, as is almost always the case with great men's sons, 
as insignificant as his father is remarkable. In society he is flat- 
tered and bowed to on account of his suppositious influence, 
and the song in La Fontaine's fable about the raven with the 
cheese in its beak is continually being sung to him: 4 * Good- 
morning, Mr. Raven! How beautiful you are and how lovely 
you sing!" Unfortunately, for these poor flatterers, it is not 
Count Herbert who has the cheese in his bill. 

His brother. Count William Bismarck, is more serious and delib- 
erative. He has less brilliancy in his manner, but a more solid 
foundation. He loves to travel and has political convictions 
that he very well knows how to apply, but with which he will 
never become anything higher than an excellent official. In ap- 
pearance he resembles his father in mind and nature, apart from 
a certain impetuosity in his dislikes inherent in all of the 
Schoenhausens, he is more like his mother. 

Their sister, Countess Marie Bismarck, married .after her chosen 
bridegroom had died, Count Eantzan, an attache in the ministry 
of foreign affairs. She is the favorite of the chancellor from 
whom she has inherited her intelligence. Her mind is very 
active and comprehensive, and, like her father, the Countess 
Rantzan possesses the gift to see through people and the inclina- 
tion to make fun of them. 



SIXTH LETTER. 

THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR AND THE MINISTRY. 

The Prussian ministry consists of a body of men who amount 
to nothing. It is a small collection of officials, who, in the eyes 
of the public, possess minister-portfolios, but in those of Herr 
von Bismarck are only higher employees shouldered with a little 
more responsibility than their subordinates and allowed a little 
more initiative proceedings than their inferior heads of bureaus 
or departments. The role apportioned to them is that of subor- 
dination; their duty consists in executing the orders given them 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



19 



without ever taking them into consideration. They are a little 
more than servants and are much, very much below the rank of 
confidants. They dare not contradict the chancellor. 

It is their duty to defend him, to relieve him of all care, for 
which they must, on the other hand, at any moment suffer his 
reproaches and expect to be discharged the moment anything 
displeases their master. In a word, they are the victims of an 
absolute will, victims, not even worth the trouble to decorate for 
the sacrificial altar, for the prince treats with the utmost con- 
tempt what takes place at their meetings — he annihilates them 
with one blow of his club, and kicks the corpse out of his way. 

The first indispensable condition to become minister to Prussia 
nowadays is the art of being able to work without consider- 
ation of reward. The second to be ready at any moment to 
bear responsibilities which have not been assumed. Besides, 
one must be pliable and yielding; must be endowed with a 
particular amount of intelligence, not too little, and, under no 
consideration, too large; must be able, and not too scrupulous, to 
draw advantage from the inexperience of others; and finally, 
one must not follow his own ideas, but those which have their 
origin in the shadow of Wilhelm street or in the solitude of 
Varzin. To sum up, one must entirely surrender his own in- 
dividuality and become a machine, and that, too, a machine in 
the narrowest sense of the word without ever forgetting, even to 
himself, that he is playing only the role of a simple instrument, 
It is obvious that it is not always an easy matter for Herr von 
Bismarck to obtain such assistants. He often believed he had 
found them, but some opposition on their part soon showed 
him that if the blindly ambitious and narrow-minded are plen- 
tiful in this world, those who prefer to act -according to their 
own ideas and on their own responsibility are more numerous 
still. In recent times he, therefore, saw himself obliged to look 
for people whose social and pecuniary position was so shaken 
that once in his hands, not the slightest inclination could seize 
them to withdraw from his dictates or from the expressions of 
his will. In a word, he had to be careful to surround himself 
not with collaborators but with menials, whose livery is as bril- 
liant as their deliberations are empty. 

The men who, at present, form the Prussian ministry are 
nothing but supernumeraries who do not desire individual roles 
and who make as little commotion in their offices as in society, 
where they are seldom seen and, if seen, hardly noticed. Only 
a single one among them, the secretary of war, has a definite 
individuality. He is an independent member of this cabinet 
of slaves, and naturally a constant and intensely keen thorn in 
the chancellor's side. But the army is the only thing the em- 
peror has taken under his personal protection; it is a sacred thing 
which no one, not even Prince Bismarck, dare touch. The old 
ruler, body a ad soul a soldier, has always taken his soldiers' 
part; he has protected, supported and shielded them with his 
imperial authority. Neither the schemes, nor the arguments, 
nor Herr von Bismarck's open attacks have ever met with the 
least 'success on this point; the emperor is the sole master and 



20 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



ruler over his army, and the secretary of war is responsible to 
no one for his determinations and decisions but to the emperor 
himself. The natural consequence of this is an abnormal con- 
dition which makes this position an extremely difficult ODe to 
occupy. A cabinet, in which all stand for one always extricates 
itself out of any embarrassment; but a secretary who apparently 
depends on the prime minister, but is, in reality, independent of 
hi in, is always in a painful and complicated position. Count 
Eoon, in his time, knew very well how to tack between these 
manifold difficulties. 

Besides, at the time when he was in the height of his power, 
the chancellor's greed for authority and despotism had not yet, 
like to-day, reached its utmost limits. General von Roon's suc- 
cessor, General von Kameka, already had his hands full to main- 
tain his place against the prince, who, nevertheless, obliged him 
to resign, after long years of silent but merciless combat. The 
present Secretary of War, General Bronsart von Schellendorf, 
occupies his position for too short a time for any one to form an 
opinion how long he will remain in it. For this reason I will 
say nothing more about him, except that his appointment 
evoked joy in certain circles, rage in others, astonishment in 
all; for the mass of people who form their opinion according to 
what they see, and not according to what goes on behind the 
scenes, had expected an entirely different selection. The ap- 
pointment of Count Paul Hatzfeld, on the other hand, to the po- 
sition of Secretary of Foreign Affairs surprised none. People 
were prepared for it in advance, and the only cause of surprise, 
if any, was the tardiness with which the thing was done. This 
slowness, this hesitancy to give Count Hatzfeld the title of the 
position, the official duties of which he already performed, had 
its cause in the condition of the pecuniary circumstances of the 
new secretary. He was over head and ears in debt, and could 
not possibly maintain his rank in regard to foreign relations 
with the proper dignity, as long as he was in such serious finan- 
cial embarrassments. The chancellor, who perfectly well knew 
these particular circumstances, became Herr von Hatzfeld's res- 
cuing angel. The count had always been one of his favorites. 
He obtained from the count's principal creditor, the banker 
Bleichroder, a release of a part of the latter's claims, or, at 
least, an extension of time to enforce them, and thus brought it 
about that the count could lead a life, if not exactly free of ail 
pecuniary cares, at any rate free of material bonds. Natural- 
ly this life was henceforth entirely devoted to the service of his 
lord and master. 

People, perhaps, believe what Count Hatzfeld says, but place 
no reliance in his promises, for the reason, no doubt, because 
they have a suspicion that he is not the man to respect them him- 
self, much less to defend them against so threatening a chief. 
He is, nevertheless, a favorite in society, in which one does not 
bother about the morality of the past life of him who is wel- 
comed there, provided he occupies an acknowledged position. 
His ingenuous manner makes everybody think well of him, 
and his inherent indifference and easy-going nature have 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



21 



gained for him many friends. As a public man he amounts to 
nothing; in private life, he has the right to claim a certain number 
of things in his favor, without, however, meriting Jmore than the 
commonplace sympathy which every well-brought-up man ob- 
tains who whiles away ten minutes of our time in agreeable con- 
versation. CountJPaul was married to a very beautiful woman, an 
American, from whom he is divorced, and who is now surrounded 
by numerous admirers. Among the latter may often be seen 
Count von Hatzfeld himself, who pays her his addresses with 
such perfect ease, that I have caught myself, at some romantic- 
ally inclined moments, wishing him renewed success with all 
my heart. 

Count Hatzfeld is one of those personages often met with 
among high diplomatic dignitaries, that is to say, a believer in 
the axiom that the end sanctifies the means, and a man of no 
scruples at all when things lie so that he can draw a personal 
advantage from them. t» 

Neither good nor bad, although of a certain elegant corrup- 
tion, ambitious more for fortune than for fame, well-informed 
without being exactly educated, intellectual without being 
thorough, and amiable through habit, he is highly agreeable as 
a man of the world, but very risky, even dangerous, as a states- 
man. He fills his place wonderfully; knows as well how to re- 
ceive the embassadors with a seductive smile, as to escort them 
out with an affable farewell salute; never permits the expression 
of a decided opinion to escape him; claims to read no papers and 
to hate politics, and exerts himself with all this, in all innocence, 
to produce the impression of an extremely smart man. 

In reality he himself is much more the deceived than he de- 
ceives others, for, although Herr von Bismarck permits him to 
execute his plans to the end, he surely does not do him the honor 
to confide his real motives and objects to him. 

The count will never have the authority in the eyes of the 
representatives of the foreign powers which his predecessor, 
Herr von Bulow had. 

There is nothing to say about the other secretaries, as they do 
not represent either a power, an opinion or even any individu- 
ality. They are very active, each in his own department, attend 
with the greatest care to the business of their respective offices, 
and do not interfere in -any of the great questions of general 
politics, in which, in fact, they are very little interested. They 
are model bureaucrats, unable to injure the great work in 
which they participate, but equally unable to manage it alone, 
to control rtand to bring it to a successful end. They are noth- 
ing but minor forces, or, more properly speaking, persons of 
special utility.' But what will become of all these automatons 
the day when the skillful hand, which at present endows them 
with life* and motion, will no longer lend them the vitality 
which their own, strength does not afford them? The chancel- 
lor's main policy to surround himself with ciphers, who draw 
their existence only from him and who work only for his glory, 
has enabled him, to execute all his plans without the slightest 
objection; it has given the general soldiers, who obey him abso* 



1% 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



lutely and blindly. But. on the other hand. Herr von Bismarck's 
tyranny has this disadvantage for Germany, that it has exter- 
minated every talent which might be capable, at some time, to 
replace the colossus to which it has at present unconditionally 
surrendered. The prince is the living incarnation of a system, a 
policy, a government, in short, of everything which forms a 
nation's life and vital organs. 

If the colossus disappears some day. the German Empire will, 
no doubt, continue to exist. But of him who bore it only the 
clay feet will be left. 



SEVENTH LETTER. 

THE PARLIAMENT. 

It is wonderful to observe with what skill Prince Bis- 
marck knows how to tack here and there between all the cliffs 
of parliamentary life in Germany. One would almost imagine 
that he had made a secret compact with Satan, when one sees 
the art and manner in which he triumphs over all obstacles, 
overcomes the hatred of all his opponents, and regularly forces 
those people to vote ''ay" who before were apparently de- 
termined to vote ''nay. " These uninterrupted triumphs are in 
part due to the chancellor's unparalleled shrewdness, but they 
are mainly caused by the want of really existing parties and by 
the entire absence of patriotism which marks the German Im- 
perial Parliament. 

In fact, if we closely examine the different fractions of which 
this parliament is composed, we will not be able to resist the 
conviction that not one of them has comprehended the true sig- 
nificance of the word, ''Fatherland." This is the reason why 
they are led, ruled and crushed by the mighty form of the 
chancellor, who is, perhaps, the only man in all Prussia who 
can appreciate the greatness of his work, and who is so identi- 
fied with it that the day on which he will disappear, he will take 
it along with him in his grave. 

Of the three great parties which divide the Parliament — the 
Conservative, the National-Liberal and the Center— the first 
mentioned is powerless on account of the entire dependence in 
which the government holds it, the second is discredited, like all 
who did not know how to draw advantage from the success of the 
moment, and the third is being misled by a leader dazzled by a 
secret and unconfessed ambition. Of this leader I will speak 
more further on. None of these tl ire e parties as I will try to 
prove, is able to defy anybody, least of all Prince Bismarck. 

The Conservatives are " mainly composed of the large Protest- 
ant and Catholic land-owners. They very well know that their 
position prevents them from acting with the Liberals, and they 
therefore believe that they can serve their own interests best 
by renouncing every initiative, every opinion of their own. They 
occasionally make a harmless protest to quiet the consciences of 
their constituents, but always, or almost always, vote with the 
chancellor. It is a party consisting partly of 'honest but feeble 
men, of persons without faith or belief, of impecunious aspirants. 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



23 



and partly, also, of confessed blockheads, who wish to become 
something at any price. The government makes a great show 
in public in regard to having this party as an ally, and from 
time to time distributes some favors among it, in order to make 
it its accomplice. It is the honorary guard which furnishes the 
accompaniment to Bismarck's decisions, and which he, in turn, 
sometimes as a whole, sometimes in its individual adherents, 
flatters, praises and pets. The majority of the Conservatives 
owe their election to the local influence which each nobleman 
or simple landed proprietor exercises over his domain; their 
canvass is supported by the government, which sees in them 
willing tools and which, in the end, it has entirely in its grasp. 
The Prussian nobility has so greatly degenerated, is so poor and 
has so often attempted to enrich itself in a way which cannot 
be more closely indicated, that it is obliged, through force of 
circumstances, to lean for support on the state and to shelter it- 
self under its powerful protection as under a cloak. Stroassberg, 
" the railroad king," as he was called in Berlin, has quite a num- 
ber of parliamentary votes on his conscience, votes which were 
snatched from his victims with force — a force having Herr von 
Bismarck's features. The prince — who sufficiently despises man- 
kind to be able to say that every conscience is purchasable 
provided you offer the proper price — has known how to fish, 
with the greatest skill, in the muddy waters in which so many 
dukes and princes went under. He bought their souls, by sav- 
ing them from ruin and shame, and leaving their skins in the 
hands of the Jewish bankers, his dear morganatic friends. Evil 
tongues allege — though we have heard no proof of it — that he 
recently in this way gained a secretary who exceeds all the rest 
in docility, who has to execute all his commands, submit to all 
his tempers, and even, if it need be, allow himself to be kicked. 
He dare not protest against this ill treatment, nor allow himself 
the slightest scruples of conscience, for fear of being at once 
delivered over, bound hand and foot, to Herr von Bismarck's 
financial executioner, whom, it is said, he owes enormous sums, 
and who spares him only out of regard to and by the order of 
the chancellor. 

And just like this secretary's situation is that of other much 
more aristocratic and better-born gentlemen, as, for instance, 
certain dukes whose estates would long ago have been seques- 
tered were it not for the intervention of the crown. All of them 
are now paying their debts from their seats in Parliament, and 
are besides overwhelmed with tokens of honor. 

These are only a few of the many examples how things are 
among the Conservatives, but they are sufficient to show the 
humiliating insignificance of this party. Other members thereof, 
the secretly ambitious, support the goverment to become secre- 
taries. To these belong Count Udo Stolberg and Prince von 
Hatzfeld-Trachenberg, cousin of Count Paul. The former is, 
without doubt, a man of intelligence, but in spite of that with- 
out political comprehension, and is, besides, dissatisfied with his 
position as a younger son. The latter, a wealthy Silesian land- 
owner, is pushed into prominence by his wife, in whose veins 



24 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



flows the blood of one of the princely families of the Almanack 
de Gotha, and who possesses all the family pride. She is the 
moving power which pushes her husband forward, for the apathy 
and incompetency of this * 4 solid, high conservative party" are 
so great that its members must absolutely be put in motion by 
love, fear, ambition or self-interest. What a sad picture of a 
vanishing, moribund aristocracy! Unable, any longer, to accom- 
plish anything by its own strength, it tries to keep itself on its 
legs, by clinging to a power and greatness it envies and hates. 
It even occasionally conspires against it, and is continually 
grumbling about it, and yet it cannot exist without it, and, in 
the end, blindly follows because it fears it. 

The National Liberals have had a programme. But this pro- 
gramme was indefinite and vacillating like the party itself. Its 
members were at one time the best friends of the Chancellor. 
Who, indeed, is there in Prussia who hasn't been at one time a 
friend of the chancellor? They supported him in his struggle 
against the papacy and in other matters, but they made the 
egregious mistake of imagining that he couldn't get along with- 
out them. This mistake caused them to lose their existence. 
There are no persons absolutely necessary to Bismarck. He only 
knows such people whom he can at some time or other use. He 
is alway r : making promises, but never keeps them. How many 
persons are there not who, at one time, his most devoted admirers 
are now his worst enemies; such as Lasker, Bamberger, and 
Benningsen, all men of talent, who became obnoxious to him, 
and whom he cast off. These men at one time thought they had 
power in their hands; they have undoubtedly had a taste of it, 
but there is, unfortunately, a great difference between fancied 
and real power. Besides this the National Liberals are deserving 
of very little sympathy. They are not really liberal, though 
some of them lean toward socialism. They are not royalists. 
Bankers and stock speculators as the majority of them are, they 
only look out for their own interests. They are enthusiastic for 
a united Germany, which would be of service to them. They 
combat the principle c.a proprietorship, but defend their own 
property. They attack the aristocracy, but are not averse to 
a title for themselves. They are conservative in respect to what 
is their own, but radical toward others. In spite of all this they 
formed, up to a few years, a powerful party. Their former 
power is gone to-day, first, because the chancellor has turned 
his back upon them; secondly, because the people have lost faith 
in them, and finally, because their principal leaders have with- 
drawn from the party, either through listlessness or disappointed 
ambition. 

One leader only is still at the front, namely Eugene Richter, 
and he is beginning to be less talked abouc than formerly. It 
won't be very long before the National Liberals, who lost a great 
deal of their footing at the last election, will become an insignifi- 
cant faction in the chamber. And yet they possessed men of 
genius and talent, and great political foresight. What they lacked 
was the ability to use these great faculties properly. The hour 
of their doom struck at the right time, but they did not notice it* 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



25 



It was Bismarck who used and tricked them. Their part on the 
political stage is played out, a thing of the past. They are no 
longer sufficiently numerous to form a majority and content 
themselves with a constant opposition to the chancellor to en- 
rage him, by recalling the past to his memory. They are still 
admired for their oratorical talents. But the voice which so 
often told the nation truths to its face, is no longer heeded. 
What injures them also is their tendency for visionary things. 
They are not free from social dreams — but the German only per- 
mits dreams of a poetical kind. He is ready to allow you to 
thirst after the ideal a la Werther — but one must not be led 
astray by the same. One must not busy himself with the people, 
the workman, the one who labors and suffers and who, according 
to the ideas of those who govern Prussia to-day, is fit only to be- 
come a soldier. 

The Center is undoubtedly the most powerful party in the legis- 
lature to-day, although it also has not a majority by itself. But 
it is the most suitable, the most compact, and at times the most 
foolish. It has no political reason, but is entirely personal. Its 
opposition is only obstinacy. Its oratory would be more at 
home in the pulpit than in the legislative chamber. 

It is composed of men of great talent who use their power for 
their own good or else try to do impossible things. It wasn't 
for nothing that the leader of this party, Herr von Windthorst, 
was once prime minister of Hanover. He has brought this weak- 
ness for a minister's portfolio along with him to Prussia, and hopes 
Bismarck will appoint him to the position. Perhaps he himself 
does not thoroughly comprehend the extent of his aspirations, 
but he cherishes them, and no matter how secret he keeps it, he 
often says to himself: " When I succeed I will be big, and they 
must reckon with me." This secret thought lends a certain in- 
definiteness to his actions. He has not given his followers any 
positive policy to follow, allowing them to accede or dissent just 
as the occasion should suggest. Through his opposition, in 
1878, he caused the defeat of the Socialist bill, whose passage 
was absolutely necessary, and it was only by dissolving Parlia- 
ment and the feeling of resentment caused by the attempted 
assassinations of Hodel and Nobiling that the bill became a law. 
In place of this he voted' in 1883 for a biennial budget, which was 
a great mistake. Why did he do this ? Because the chancellor 
intimated to him that he would attempt to bring about a recon- 
ciliation with the Vatican, and he did not wish to be accused of 
not supporting the government when so much was at stake. 
And what happened then ? The chancellor had merely broached 
a reconciliation whilst the Center had really granted a biennial 
budget. This unfortunate budget affair, more than anything 
else, disclosed the lack, of patriotism which reigns in the German 
Parliament. It is a positive fact that they were all aware of the 
danger to the country of a biennial budget, and from the time 
of the emperor's last rescript to the chamber up to the month of 
April, they had vowed over and over again not to vote for the 
measure, believing that the country would decide against the 
government at every new election. 



26 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



And|yet — three months after these solemn demonstrations and 
without changing their opinions, they all voted for the despised 
budget merely because Herr von Windthorst suddenly discovered 
the shadow of a portfolio winking at him in the distance, and 
he said to himself, " To the dickens with the nation, so long as 
the Vatican, which we represent, succeeds." And yet, since then 
neither thq, Vatican nor the gentlemen of the Center have suc- 
ceeded. They could have surmised that a man of steel like the 
chancellor never gives in. Whenever the occasion comes when 
he really desires to make peace with Rome, he will do it without 
the services of Parliament or the Center. But momentarily he 
has no such idea. It pleases him to attach this bait to his hook 
and he hopes to catch still larger fish with it. If the Center de- 
sired to follow a loyal, honest, and at the same time effective 
policy, it should either join forces entirely with Bismarck and 
stop attacking him in its organs, or else openly challenge him and 
combine with the Liberals to defeat such obnoxious measures as 
biennial budgets. But these Catholics are far from having such 
a high standard of honor. They can only indulge in lamenta- 
tions and excommunications. A reasonable, shrewd policy is an 
impossibility to them. They are too much occupied with their 
own interests. 

It is unnecessary to speak of the other factions in the chamber. 
The Poles obstinately stick to their one stand-point of attack. 
The Socialists are good orators. The Alsace-Lorraine party is of 
no account. These three elements are alike of no consequence, 
but they at least never hurt their own cause, whether on account 
of the justness of it or else because no one thmks it worthy of 
attack, it is impossible to say. 

As for the Parliament, as a whole, it is composed, as I have 
shown, of a number of ambitious men, a few dreamers, a 
crowd of dunces, some really talented men, and a certain class 
of men who think it only necessary to have received a decora- 
tion to be able to govern the world. On the w T hole, Parliament 
has formed peculiar illusions about its importance and worth. 
It thinks itself a legislative assembly, and is nothing more than 
a meeting room. It pretends to exist under a constitutional 
government, whereas there is no such thing at all. It believes 
it is following its own inclinations when it accedes to a request 
contained in the emperor's rescripts, whereas, in reality, it 
submits to the will of an absolute monarch. It is unaware of 
its own strength and never makes use of it. It is nothing but a 
cover for a despotic government, which is even more despotic 
than that of Russia, since in the latter country it is not based 
on the will of one man as in Germany, but upon established 
facts. This Parliament will always be a willing tool in the 
hands of power, so long as Bismarck is at the head of affairs. 
The latter is without dispute a master in the art of probing 
hearts, fostering ambitious hopes, flattering the mighty, causing 
the vacillating to become firm and finally through cunning, 
shrewdness, energy and will-power, of becoming the guardian 
and master of consciences through purchase. 

This is a fact. This incapable, unpatriotic Parliament is op- 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



posed to a gigantic power, viz., Bismarck, whose formidable fig- 
ure is covered by the throne, which serves him as a shield. And 
it is certainly to the emperor's credit that he has protected his 
powerful minister, in face of all opposition. It is true, though, 
that owing to the services he sometimes renders to the chan- 
cellor, he imagines he is exercising the power which in reality is 
done by the former. Nevertheless, it must be considered as a 
great thing for him to acknowledge the superiority of another, 
especially when that other holds an inferior position. Bismarck 
has really succeeded in his plans to establish an absolute mon- 
archy. There is no cabinet in Prussia answerable for its acts to 
any one; there is neither a parliament, nor any other thing, gen- 
erally looked on as a factor in constitutional governments. 
There is nothing but the chancellor, who combines in himself 
the ruler, the representatives, the people, the administration — 
in fact, everything. He has tyrannized Germany so much that 
it is a question whether, on the day Bismarck dies, the people 
will know how to govern themselves. 

Just now every one flatters him, hoping to secure a favor from 
the powerful man, while he laughs at the world and despises it, 
and — shrewder than Richelieu — does not condescend to have his 
political opponents executed, content with making them ridicu- 
lous in the eyes of the people. He destroyed Lasker, let Del- 
bruck slide and got Beningsen out of the way. He is now at- 
tempting to serve Windthorsfc with a like fate, flattering him at 
first, holding out false hopes to him and creating ambitious de- 
sires within him, He rules just as much as he reigns. Germany 
will one day have to pay dearly for the honor of having had him, 
and at the same time the most incompetent Par ~;ment that ever 
existed at the head of its affairs. The fxx§ \ y will revenge 
Europe, for what now represents Prussia's glory will then be her 
ruin. It cannot go unpunished, for one man to absorb all the 
life and vitality of a nation. Sooner or later the time will come 
when this nation will have to suffer for the scarcity of great 
leaders, and if Prince Bismarck has known how to triumph over 
six parliaments with the same old methods, if he has made his 
country big and has forced himself to be looked upon as the ar- 
bitrator of the world, he has also laid the foundation for the 
annihilation of this country, in destroying all those who would 
have been able to continue his work. 



EIGHTH LETTER. 

THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR AND THE CONFEDERATION. 

In the year 1870, when the new German Empire was founded, 
some objections were raised. The small princes who elected 
King William as their emperor at Versailles, did not do so with- 
out a great deal of grumbling, and in spite of their enthusiasm 
they would much rather not have been obliged to make this 
demonstration. 

Bismarck, with his shrewdness and genius, took in the situa- 
tion long before the victims, was prepared for the secret rage of 
the little sovereigns of Germany, and his proposition to estab- 



28 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



lish the so-called ' 1 confederation," was merely done to sweeten 
the bitter pill. This body, which recalled memories of the 
North German Confederation, was called into existence to allow 
the shadow kings who bowed before the feet of Prussia, to 
imagine that they would be allowed to take part in the govern- 
ment of their states. In reality this confederation is only a gi- 
gantic illusion; just as the Parliament and the cabinet. The 
confederation is only another instrument in the hands of the 
chancellor, who rules it at will. Established as a factor in the 
government, it has become a machine, in whose name someone 
else governs. All its members, whether creatures of Bismarck 
or his enemies, are too awkward to be dangerous, or too insig- 
nificant to be troublous. The whole thing is simply an artis- 
tic stage effect — that's all. The audience which looks at the 
stage through an opera glass, fondly supposes that everything 
has been admirably arranged, that the trees are real, and the 
fountains play real water, but the minute one puts foot on this 
same stage and walks about it, one very soon discovers the mis- 
take one has been laboring under. The duty of the confedera- 
tion is to carry out the chancellor's decisions. It also serves 
him as a lightning-rod whenever he desires to propose a bill to 
the chamber, to which he knows it is opposed and cannot be 
spared if he wishes to defeat some law which the chamber 
passes. In the first instance, it is the duty of the confederation 
to pretend to assert its rights, and in the second to accept all the 
blame. Nothing is more amusing than to see Bismarck in these 
cases confiding to friendly representatives the grief and sorrow 
caused him by the obstinacy of his colleagues in the confedera- 
tion. S c 

He plays hi-Ji comedy so often that one cannot help asking 
what he would do if he hadn't this scapegoat. In such a case it 
almost seems as if he would often become gravely embarrassed 
were it not. as we know, that he is a man of such varied re- 
sources that should the confederation prove unfaithful to him, 
he would soon discover something else. Besides this, the latter 
does not deceive itself with regard to the part it plays. In this 
respect it possesses more intelligence than the Parliament, 
which still imagines it has a voice in the affairs of Germany. 
The members of the confederation know that their whole con- 
sists in blindly obeying the advice given them. This is the 
reason why it never gives forth an opinion, and in the face of the 
greatest cause for doing so, never takes the initiative in any- 
thing. Its official position is summed up in the words obeying 
and conforming. They do not represent their sovereigns, but 
live from the quantity of amiability which flatters their self-love 
and vanity, in the same way in which the sovereigns themselves 
are merely shadows; they do the functions of shadows for these 
shadows in the horrible farce, in which the chancellor as every- 
where plays the principal part. 

In Germany very little importance is attached to the con- 
federation. Ambitious people sneer at it, intelligent people 
despise it, the sensible ones think it entirely useless. All are 
unanimous in saying it has no dignity and no policy and if it 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



29 



has any reason for being in existence, it has none just now where 
its influence is null, its role a purely passive one and its opinions 
vague, vacillating and modeled after those of its master. Never- 
theless every one tries to preserve it, wherefore I do not know, 
for all the good it does does not amount to a row of pins. Still 
it represents a principle, one of those rare principles which, if 
carefully concealed, would never be openly attacked by Bismarck, 
and it is for this reason that all Germany finds it necessary to 
put the confederation in a glass case through which it can he 
admired at leisure. When I use the word admire it is a wrong 
expression. One must, on the contrary, criticise it when talking 
about the confederation or occupying oneself with its afiairs, 
which happens very rarely indeed. The German generally 
knows very little about politics. He is proud of the triumphs of 
his country, but brutally proud, like the Indian who rejoices at 
the number of scalps he has in his belt. He is rude to his 
enemies and egotistical with his friends. And while proud of 
the height attained by his country, has never given himself the 
trouble to ascertain the causes which produced it. The only 
sentiment he really feels is a thirst for rapacity and absolute 
dominion; he would like to have the whole world peopled with 
Germans. His only desire is to enforce his supremacy all over 
the globe. Outside of this nothing excites him, nothing 
interests him, nor does ought else draw him from his daily pur- 
suits. 

He therefore takes no part in the way he is governed and does 
not discuss anything with the exception of a few people who are 
drawn into the political vortex. This little bunch of patriots 
neither admires nor esteems the confederation, but submits to 
its existence, in the the same way it bows to the dictates of the 
chancellor, viz., with, a stoic resignation based on the ground 
that there is nothing to be done momentarily against the irresist- 
ible force of circumstances. 

Among the nullities who compose the federal council two 
men distinguish themselves from the others, one of them through 
his loyal fidelity, the other by reason of his cynical wit: Heir 
von Nostilz Walwitz, the representative of Saxony, and Comt 
Lerchenfeld, the Bavarian minister. Herr von Nostilz is a 
diplomat of the old school. He is one of those men who make 
up in common sense what they lack in brilliancy, in intelligence 
what they lack in wit. He is always very calm, very reserved 
and very polite, never venturing an opinion on any subject, 
possesses prudence, tact and sang froid. Up to the present 
time he has succeeded in keeping on good terms with the chan- 
cellor though not without trouble. His position is that of a watch 
dog. He knows very well they would like to devour both him 
and his country and that they still regret the quasi independence 
of Saxony. And in spite of this, he is obliged daily to hear 
deceitful tender words, simulate himself a friendship he is 
permitted not to believe in himself. Herr von Nostilz feels the 
part he plays keenly, knows they would like to reduce Saxony 
still more and is perfectly satisfied that he is only tolerated 
through t necessity, but being unable to change these things hf 



30 



BEBL1N SOCIETY. 



resigns himself to his fate and only essays to conduct himself 
with dignity. He rarely attacks or disputes any of the chancel- 
lor's plans; he only does so when he feels able to bring a big 
majority to his side. 

Ordinarily he approves the resolutions submitted to him, and 
through circumspection sometimes does not care to use the influ- 
ence he could have. He lives on good terms with his colleagues 
of the council as well as with the members of the diplomatic 
corps, among whom his wife is equally appreciated. Madame 
de Nostilz is an amiable person, benevolent, affable, very distin- 
guished in appearance, who with more wit than her husband, 
has sometimes less coolness and repose, a very important thing 
for both in their position. 

Count Hugo von Lerchenf eld, the Bavarian minister, does not 
resemble his Saxon colleague. He is still a young man, almost 
too young in fact, for the important position he holds. This po- 
sition he obtained through the intervention of Count Herbert 
von Bismarck, with whom he became acquainted, in Vienna. 
The latter recommended him to his father as a person who 
would become devoted to him. The chancellor remembered the 
information given him by his son, and when the Bavarian gov- 
ernment (whose last two representatives at Berlin w T ere almost 
expelled in consequence of famous scandals), when the Bavarian 
government, I say, made an inquiry with the prince what person 
would be most agreeable to him to be accredited to the court of 
Prussia, he immediately named Count Lerchenfeld, who has 
since been able to maintain himself in the favor of his redoubt- 
able protector. Personally the count is very agreeable. He is 
w r ell brought up, educated, has a great deal of wit, vast tact, 
and, as a man of the world, is a charming companion. He has 
traveled a great deal and appropriated the good and bad quali- 
ties of all the countries he has visited, 

He is very ambitious, sometimes intriguing, a man who can 
always be led, for he has no convictions or scruples except those 
contained in the ten commandments and the existing laws. He 
hasn't even any vices; his heart is a stone, his passions are con- 
fined to his own person; he has never hated nor loved any one. 
He has simply served some people and made use of others, flat- 
tered those he needed and abandoned those for whom he has no 
more use. He hasn't even been ungrateful, his nature being es- 
sentially one of those who ignore the signification of the word 
gratitude. He has confined himself to having his pathway 
watered by others, so as to prevent any dust arising, accepting 
this service as something due him. 

His devotion to the chancellor is great, but it is to his rank as 
prince and not to his person. Herr von Lerchenfeld is thorough- 
ly well up in politics, but takes as little interest in it as possible. 
He is too careful of his future to compromise it by risking an 
opinion. His motto should be: Pro me. 

Nevertheless, in spite of, or rather on account of, his defects, 
he is a man who will always be happy, who will succeed in the 
career he has chosen, who will always please and who, in conse- 
quence of his careless egotism , will make his way in the world 



BERLIN SOCIETY, 



3J 



better than one who is embarrassed by a storeful of passions, con- 
victions and dreams, in short, of all those sentimentalities which 
the public of the nineteenth century has voted out of fashion. 
In our times no one can succeed who does not combine amiability 
with cynicism, indifference to what is thought of you, with a 
desire to reach every idea no matter at what cost. Count Lerch- 
enfeld possesses these characteristics, and what is more he 
knows how to make use of them. 

There is nothing to be said of the other members of the con- 
federation, all are similar to each other, one is worth as much as 
the other, and they are equally led by Prince Bismarck and 
treated with the same indifference by the people. One, only, 
the representative of Baden, Baron Turckheim, is the object of 
the tenderest solicitude on the part of the emperor and his family 
on account of his august sovereign the Grand Duchess Louise of 
Baden, who is the only daughter of King William. The baron 
is a small man, very honest and very tranquil, inoffensive, 
whose greatest fault is an aversion to soap and water, things 
which are generally dispensed with by savages, but are ordinarily 
appreciated by civilized persons. 



NINTH LETTER. 

PRUSSIA'S POLICY. 

In my position as an old diplomat, you desire me to give you 
my views in regard to general politics. Do not look for extended 
views on this point, as I shall confine myself to a few pages. 
Diplomatic questions can hardly be touched upon in the limited 
space of a letter, and besides you have not yet reached the age 
where people become excited over politics. It is a thing one 
interests oneself later on, at that epoch, as La Rochefoucauld 
says, in which life becomes congealed. You are still at the 
point where one only sees the fact without seeking the causes or 
circumstances, often insignificant in themselves, which have 
provoked them. Nevertheless you are curious to know my 
opinion of an alliance between Prussia and Russia, or even about 
the cordial union which appeal's to exist between the courts of 
Vienna and Berlin. 

I haven't the leisure to enumerate a thousand little details 
which would prove to you that this union and this understanding 
between them are only and ever will be expedients and strongly 
recall the lies Frederick the Second used to avail himself of, not 
without success, I confess. Before Frederick the Second and 
already at the time of the great Elector, the policy of Prussia was 
always to simulate friendships and form dupes. Thanks to this 
system, sagaciously conducted and ingeniously pursued, she has 
arrived, little by little, or rather her princes have been able to im- 
pose themselves on Europe and forced her to bow before the 
former vassal of Poland. It is well to observe that this greatness 
was not caused by the efforts or bravery of the people, but was 
the work of a few men, who during several generations have 
pursued the same object and in whom the entire nation is per- 
sonified, The German generally and the Prussian in particular 



32 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



has a blind faith in the energy of the House of Hohenzollern. 
The nature of the German is soft, good-hearted at bottom, fero- 
cious at times and by fits, indolent and apathetic, capable of 
perseverance, but not of taking the initiative. The Prussian 
pushes to the limit the spirit of obedience, but he has not the art 
of ordering anything which he hasn't been ordered himself to do. 
He is bom to be a soldier, has all a soldier's enthusiasm, loves to 
conquer, is wonderfully desirous of possessing another's property, 
takes what he has not but does not confess it. Not able to have 
the moral qualities he is ambitious for, he regards them with 
horror in a neighbor and on account of that, positively desires to 
assimilate himself with his neighbor, hoping to profit by some 
miraculous transfusion. 

The convictions and sympathies of the German people have 
been wonderfully realized by the reigning family. 

It has taken the word " Conquer " as a motto, and slowly, with 
premeditation and energy has applied itself to satisfying the vo- 
racious appetite which distinguishes the Teutonic race. This ex- 
plains why since nearly 100 years, Prussia's policy has appeared 
to be so able, so constant in its aim, and why it has in reality been 
so vacillating, uniting herself with those she had to combat with 
the same facility with which she combats those with whom she 
unites. It is a policy exempt from prejudices, indifferent to 
every system, and entirely selfish. The Hohenzollerns would 
have looked upon the aim pursued by Richelieu to humble Aus- 
tria, as a weakness. Prussia has never comprehended power 
other than that founded upon great territorial possessions. She 
has always been dominated by envy, jealousy, vengeance, by 
the worst feelings of humanity. The Hohenzollerns have always 
had the conviction that they were called by God to raise up a 
people whose instincts they have corrupted without elevating 
their character. Prussia's policy from time immemorial has been 
to flatter and then abandon those who have innocently confided 
in her protestations of friendship and devotion. She knew how 
to cause France to forget her vigilance in 1866, acquire Russia's 
sympathies in 1870, conciliate England at the Berlin Congress, 
and attach Austria to her one year later through an alliance. 
Her plan has always been to excite one nation against the other, 
or else provoke internal disturbances from which she draws 
profit. Tt is in this way she gloried in the annexation of Bosnia 
and of the Herzogovina to the House of Habsburg, and contrib- 
uted with all the power at her disposal in creating Bulgaria, with 
the aid of which she is able to irritate the nerves of the St. 
Petersburg cabinet and can one day reopen the eternal Oriental 
question. 

She wishes to have a hand in everything merely from egotism 
and never by reason of any higher ambition. She is intriguing 
but redoubtable, for she is not susceptible to any enthusiasm, is 
inaccessible to pity, and bases her policy upon the coldest, 
most exact and unpitying calculation. She is never more dan- 
gerous than at the moment she appears to be well disposed to- 
ward her neighbors; she is most to be dreaded when she pro- 
fesses to be in favor of peace. Much has been said about the 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



union which exists between the courts of Prussia and Russia. 
It lias even been said that since the death of Alexander II. these 
relations have become strained. I believe this is false, at least 
in regard to Russia, which, in spite of what certain papers say, 
hasn't the sense to know the danger it is running. At Berlin, 
on the other hand, they wish to regain the sympathies of Alex- 
ander ELL, in the first p]ace, to prevent a union between him 
and France, and then to provoke Russia against Austria, which 
they are beginning to find embarrassing. You will be tempted 
to deny these statements, but if you observe events with care 
yon will find that what I state is correct. An intense rivalry 
exists since a long time between the Hohenzollerns and the 
Habsburgs. The first named have already succeeded in snatch- 
ing from the latter the diadems of Charlemagne and Barbarossa, 
but si ill are envious of the imperial title they are forced to 
divide with them and cannot accustom themselves to that rival 
empire with whom they must reckon. 

Their dream is to confine the heirs of Marie Theresa to Hun- 
gary, and to absorb in the great German country the Austrian 
provinces. This dream they will one day realize, for they do not 
yet know what defeat is; then they will abandon Russia, who 
will have unconsciously loaned her aid. and will believe them- 
selves to be the masters of Europe and of the world, until a 
coalition of all the other powers will awaken them from their 
proud sleep; even then they will, perhaps, be able to avert new 
perils, for they are as shrewd as they are strong. But, you will 
ask me, is there not a means of arresting the extension of a 
power which menaces all the European nations? Alas! my 
young friend, I see no remedy. In every age the barbarians have 
triumphed, and brutal force has always overcome intelligence, 
genius, wit, elegance, and the charm of civilized life. The old 
Roman empire itself could not resist the shock of the Teuton 
hordes, and how can you expect our present society to sustain 
it? Fraternity is ignored in our times, and people no longer 
know how to unite against the common enemy. The only thing 
which would be able to distract the attention of Prussia* would 
be to abandon Austria to her, the object of her secret desires, 
on the condition that she returns Alsace-Lorraine to France, 
and permits Russia to take possession of Constantinople; but it 
would require a Richelieu to bring such a conception to a favor- 
able ending, and we have not even a Mazarin in all Europe. Be- 
sides, England would be always opposed to such a project, and 
no one is strong enough to close her mouth. 

On the other hand France does not take sufficient interest in 
politics to weigh in the European equilibrium, and Russia does 
not understand her own interests sufficiently to be able to seize 
this consideration and conclude an alliance with the common 
enemy. I cannot see, therefore, any obstacle in the future to the 
continuation nor even to the extension of Germany's power, un- 
less Providence should send her a sovereign who could compre- 
hend the real interests of the country better than his predecessors 
had, and who would apply himself to the task of establishing 
his supremacy by a noble use of his power, and who, above all, 



34 



SEBLIN SOCIETY. 



will understand that the largest tree can be overturned by a 
tempest if it stands alone and solitary, while it would run less 
danger if standing in a forest, whose friendly branches could 
protect it from the cyclone. But I perceive that what I am say- 
ing are dreams, and I will stop for fear that you will sneer at 
my gray hairs and silly diplomatic dreams. 



TENTH LETTER. 
HERR VON WINDTHORST AND THE CATHOLICS. 

I have already spoken of this leader and his party in my let- 
ter on the Parliament; to-day I wish to give you a light sketch of 
the man, as also of his adherents. 

Herr von Windthorst is a personality curious to study either 
physically or morally. His fine, intelligent, sympathetic counte- 
nance is one of those which are engraven in the memory. His 
almost diminutive stature is, nevertheless, not ridiculous; his 
eyes sparkle with intelligence, his external appearance is that of a 
person always excited, always agitated, always on the watch for 
some means of having himself spoken about. His voice, at once 
sweet and sonorous, is admirably made to sustain parliamentary 
conflicts; irony is the most characteristic quality of his speech, 
and his stinging sarcasms know how to pierce the hardest 
cuirasses with a cruel but sure aim. He is one of the best ora- 
tors of the Parliament, his captivating eloquence is of the kind 
which moves and agitates the masses without they themselves 
knowing why; if it is examined in detail, one soon discovers 
that Herr von Windthorst has only the art of oratory and not 
that science of things, that close logic, which fortifies Herr von 
Bismarck's arguments. A speech of the Catholic leader, how- 
ever, creates a sensation, but no conviction. The orator's 
thought never passes beyond the circle of his hearers; he appeals 
to their passions, awakens their evil instincts, excites those to 
hate who listen to him all the more readily since he does not 
seek to persuade them. The " Pearl of Meppen," as Herr von 
Windthorst has been termed, has an immense influence on the 
imagination of those who see in him a champion of oppressed 
liberty; these enthusiasts do not suspect that under these fine 
phrases is concealed one of the most authoritative characters in 
the world. This little man, with his benevolent countenance, 
his exquisite politeness, his spirit of pleasant raillery, is, in fact, 
one of those domineering persons who cannot resign themselves 
to the loss of power. 

Formerly Prime Minister to the King of Hanover, Herr von 
Windthorst was obliged by the very force of circumstances to 
take sides with the opposition and to combat the Prussian gov- 
ernment without truce or intermission. As a Catholic he could 
give emphasis to this struggle and rally around him many per- 
sons who would not have sought protection and support from 
the chief of the Guelph party. This intelligence soon obtained 
for him an uncontested authority over all the Ultramontanes, for 
the most part very mediocre people; his marvelous tact enabled 



BERLIN- SOCIETf. 



him to conceal his plans from them and to not let them suspect 
his frenzied ambition. 

Herr von Windthorst would long ago have tired of his unthank- 
ful role had he not been dominated by the secret desire to again 
become minister. He dreams of his own triumph, while saying 
that he is working for that of his friends. He has already made 
several advances to the chancellor, who, needing him and his 
party, received them very graciously. Herr von Bismarck, who 
perfectly understands his intelligent adversary's desires, often 
enough profits by them, and always makes him render some 
great service in exchauge for a small favor. These two combat- 
ants sometimes guess each other's plans, but the prince generally 
has the advantage in the daily fights which they wage, for he 
never loses his coolness; besides, he is not, like Herr von Wind- 
thorst, embarrassed by his friends, who frequently hinder the 
movements of the former adviser of King George. 

It is difficult to lead a party, especially if that party is actuated 
neither by love of country, nor liberty, nor even by ambition. 

The activity of the Catholic party has for its motive only the 
triumph of a principle which, besides, it ill comprehends, but 
to which it clings like a drowning person to a straw. It is evi- 
dent that the Catholic Church will never obtain in Prussia the 
supremacy it covets; it therefore agitates only to invent a modus 
Vivendi which will permit it to live in peace with the Protest- 
ant state. But this end will never be attained except by a di- 
rect compact between the court of Rome and the Berlin cabi- 
net. This compact, if the chancellor manages to conclude it, 
will strike the Center a mortal blow, depriving it of the reason 
fdr its existence and of all pretext for fighting. An under- 
standing with the Vatican would be a complete triumph for 
Herr von Bismarck, for it would disembarrass the government of 
its most ardent enemies; but he would create so great a number 
of others that it is better for him to keep those he has. 

Herr von Bismarck understands perfectly the difficulty of this 
situation. As long as things are in their present statu quo, it is 
always easy for him to obtain a majority, either by enticing the 
Ultramontanes by the promise of a concession or satisfying the 
Liberals by the rigorous execution and enforcement of some 
clause of the May laws. An arrangement once concluded with 
the Vatican, he would lose these two convenient means of get- 
ting his bills passed, and, besides, he would find himself sur- 
rounded with enemies, some of whom would accuse him of hav- 
ing abandoned them, while others would be angry with him for 
having taken away their pretext for war. 

In fact the Center would be very unfortunate if it could no 
longer attack the government. 

It is a party organized solely to fight, it is incapable of follow- 
ing any other policy but that of combat. If it were partly 
victorious it would at once break up, scattering in such way as 
to make it impossible to reorganize it at a given moment. The 
narrow spirit which has since the beginning marked the Ultra- 
montanes renders them inapt in everything except bigotry. 
They do not know what politics are as far as the abstract 



35 BERLIN SOCIETY. 

principle is concerned, they have a still more vague idea of its 
application; all their force, all their efforts consist in a violent 
opposition to all progress whether in the domains of literature, 
science or arts, or even to that which every nation makes in be- 
coming civilized and freeing itself from the prejudices which 
surround it. One cannot love two things at the same time, and 
when one allows himself to be absorbed by the church one ends 
always by becoming indifferent to one's country. The Germans 
are right in hating the Catholic party, and I am not surprised to 
see the anti- clerical organs of France often applaud the clericals 
in the German Parliament, for such is the blindness of the 
Catholics that they would not hesitate to call on the foreigner 
for aid if they believed thereby to render a service to their 
cause. 

Herr von Windthorst, with his far-seeing mind, perfectly com- 
prehends this fanaticism, but makes use of it for his private pur- 
poses, and alone, perhaps, among his faithful ones, does not 
share the convictions he defends. He strives unceasingly to 
strengthen these convictions in his friends, in order to always 
have at his disposal an army by aid of which he may be able to 
gently lead Herr von Bismarck to surrender. He does not 
perceive that by this constant play of giving with the one hand 
what one takes a way with the other one ends by being discredited 
in the eyes of the public, which notices all these maneuvers and 
which, after all, represents opinion. 

The chancellor very well understands the advantage he draws 
from little parliamentary scenes, and if they are wanting for too 
long a time he provokes them. He has always systematically 
sethis adversaries fighting among themselves, and, thanks to 
these tricks, he has obtained his best triumphs. His alliance, or 
even his friendship, always injures those who accept it; hence 
his final and sure means of getting rid of his enemies is to make 
them believe that he is touched by remorse for his past conduct 
toward them. The thing is easily observable, the prince taking 
a sort of pride never to vary his methods. The Catholic party 
could neither foresee nor avoid this state of relations with the 
emperor; hence one may say that its last agony begins. The 
Ultramontanes are enjoying their last successes; Herr von Wind- 
thorst already sees the portfolio he covets in his grasp; but the 
future will gradually destroy these illusions, blight these hopes, 
and prove to all these disappointed aspirants that when one is 
opposed by an enemy like Herr von Bismarck, one must, at no 
price, enter into any compact with him, but combat him always, 
continually, unceasingly, without truce or mercy, to the bitter 
end, until one has triumphed over him or has been overcome 
after losing everything save honor. 



ELEVENTH LETTER. 

HERR BEBEL AND THE SOCIALISTS. 

The Socialists cannot be accused of making terms with the 
enemy. Never has a political party so well defended a desperate 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



37 



cause, never has a handful of men given proof of more indom- 
itable courage or more manly energy. The German Socialists 
are the brothers neither of the Russian Nihilists nor the French 
Communists; they have, indeed, some affinity, some resemblance 
with them; they, it is true, employ the same means, but their 
aim is a different one, and their ideal, if I may so express myself, 
reposes on an entirely different basis. They are not revolution- 
ists, but men filled with indignation. They do not contend 
against the superiority of one social caste over the other; they 
protest solely against the accumulation of power in despotic 
hands and of money in mercenary grasps; they have inscribed 
themselves against that absolute contempt of the fate of the 
poorer classes with which Herr von Bismarck governs. The 
most ferocious among them, those who publicly announce their 
doctrines of murder and arson, have reached this stage of exalta- 
tion only through stress of sufferings. Germany, as I have told 
you several times, is indifferent to all questions of government, 
provided it has its cabbage soup, and can eat it in peace. What 
does it care what form of government oppresses it ? There are, 
therefore, only a small number of individuals who allow them- 
selves to be moved by the misery of the people or the hard lot of 
the workingman. It is this small number which forms the so- 
cialistic party, and which has never been able to gather numer- 
ous adherents on account of the silent passiveness of those whose 
poverty it takes to heart, and whose interests it defends with so 
much warmth. 

The Socialists will never become popular; they have every- 
thing to attract the masses, but the soil on which they labor is 
still too new to submit to the influence of their tilling. The en- 
tire nation is too much stupefied by its dire military slavery to 
even admit the thought that it could be liberated from it. That 
is why only vagabonds or tramps join the Socialists, whose 
chiefs alone are convinced by and enthusiastic for their cause. 

The Socialists have a very painful position in the Parliament. 
Every one shuns them, all parties equally suspect them. Their 
line of action remains none the less admirable for its logic and 
the persistence with which they pursue their end; although few 
in number, they bargain away their strength to no one where 
there is a question of making a demonstration in favor of that 
liberty to which they have consecrated themselves. They have 
always known how to preserve an independence, so much the 
more remarkable as it is a thing almost unknown in German 
parliamentary circles; they have never shown any favors to any 
one, and have scorned those offered to them. They have never 
compromised their dignity and have, at times, known how to 
move their most obstinate adversaries by the rude but sublime 
eloquence with which they have championed liberty for all, and 
the rights of citizenship for the poor as well as for the rich. 
Their theories are evidently impracticable, their plans beyond 
realization, their aspirations insensate, their view even of hu- 
man nature too elevated; for a state of society such as they 
dream of cannot exist with the vices, greed, meanness and am- 
bitions which are the attributes of poor mortals; but I again re- 



38 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



peat it, their ideal is divine and approaches that preached by 
Christ on the mount. 

All the tenderness and mysticism in the German nature is 
condensed in them; they have reached the stage where they 
imagine that peace, harmony, happiness are possible in our.sad 
world, and that man has the right to make use of everything, 
even of sword and fire, to assure and retain the victory. 

This conviction is evidently an error; but it inspires in those 
who believe in it an ardor like that which animated the soldiers 
of Mahomet II. when the old Greek empire fell into their hands 
and Mohammedanism was installed as master in Constanti- 
nople. Socialism, too, is a sort of Koran, but a Koran revised 
and adapted to the needs and aspirations of our epoch. It is a 
kind of religion — it is, in fact, the only one of which science has 
not sapped the foundation in the nineteenth century; it has its 
enthusiasts, its fanatics, its preachers, and even its martyrs, 
especially in Germany, where it does not have its springs in evil 
instincts; it is the product of the indigenous poetry of a people 
whose ideal is personified by Goethe's Marguerite. Socialism, 
as it is understood and professed in the native land of the im- 
mortal poet, would form a most serious danger if encountered 
in any other country, personified in the same manner; but in a 
nation incapable of enthusiasm, too calm to be dominated by 
momentary impressions, not inclined to become excited over 
theories, to be softened by words or moved by sobs, it will re- 
main, for a long while yet, a chimera, dangerous only for the 
few exalted souls which will always succumb to the tranquillity 
and indifference of the nation at large. The latter now com- 
bats it with all its might, because it does not understand it, and 
imagines that the wild harangues of Herr Hesselmann are the 
same thing as the exalted but logical ideas of Herr Bebel, his 
friend in appearance but in reality his adversary. 

Herr Bebel is a remarkable figure. The son of a workingman, 
a workingman himself, he reached the position he at present, 
occupies only by force of perseverance, energy and will. He ed- 
ucated himself, and, by the sole strength of his talent, has man- 
aged to organize his party, give it a direction and, in fine, disci- 
pline it. He is a man of conviction even more than an enthu- 
siast. He is not ferocious, and admits destruction only as a 
means without erecting it into a principle. He has no hatred 
against the mighty on earth, but he wants power to be accessible 
to all and not concentrated in the hands of a few. He desires 
this power to be the reward of talent, now the crown of a glory 
purchased by the blood of thousands of victims. He admits no 
other superiority but that of mind, intelligence and labor; he 
especially dreams of the amelioration of 'the condition of the 
working classes and, before anything, demands universal liberty 
— religious, social and material liberty. In a word he is an apos- 
tle: but not a fanatic. A remarkable orator, his speech persuades, 
not, like that of Herr von Windthorst, by the fictitious eloquence 
of well- arranged words, but by rugged conviction, by the plain 
truth with which he paints the miseries of oppressed humanity, 
and by his eagerness to communicate his thoughts to his listen- 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



ers, to make them the sharers of his opinions, and to lead them 
to recognize the truth of his assertions. He speaks of pov- 
erty, misery and vice like a man who has seen these things at 
close range and has suffered by them. He moves his listeners, 
not by imaginary sufferings but by real griefs; he draws forth 
tears, not for insignificant things, but for the severity of the lot 
of the people, the workingman, of him who struggles, works, 
strives with want and penury, and who one day will revolt 
against all the vileness, the filth and corruption which surrounds 
him, against the luxury, the product of his toils against the 
gold heaped up in the safes of the Jewish banker's, friends of 
Herr von Bismarck, with the aid of which great lords snatch his 
children from him to ruin and betray them. 

That is what Herr Bebel talks about; that is what he denounces 
in the presence of al] the poor as well as the rich, the powerful as 
well as the weak; and that is what he will never be pardoned for; 
that is why he is hunted like a wild beast, why bitter war has 
been declared against him, why people seek to confound him 
with those who, as skeptical but less pitying than he, wish to 
destroy a form of society they despair of converting. 

To this class belongs Herr Hasselmann, who has formerly 
made himself much spoken about and who represents the per- 
fect type of a callous ranter. His speeches, from beginning to 
end, are panegyrics of murder and assassination. When the bill 
directed against the Socialists was presented to the Parliament 
for the second time, the violence of his words contributed not a 
little to have it passed into a law. Besides, his friends them- 
selves are aware of the harm his language and opinions inflict on 
their cause, and they were not sorry when circumstances forced 
him to retire from the parliamentary arena. For many people, 
Herr Hasselmann entirely represents socialism, and few imagine 
that in Germany the greater portion of his adherents are honest 
enthusiasts, like Herr Bebel, with attractive speech, with ideas 
distorted with a too great love of justice and equality, with 
aspirations impossible in a positivistic age like ours, and with 
projects which cannot be realized in an epoch in which a whole 
cemetery hanging in the air would not suffice to convert the 
world to Mahomet's paradise. 



TWELFTH LETTER. 

COUNT MOLTKE — MARSHAL MANTEUFFEL — GENERAL VON KAMEKE, 

Count Moltke is a tall old man, lean and dry, quite taciturn, 
still robust for his eighty years, frigid in appearance, with polite 
manners and on the whole rather insignificant looking. In 
society he loves to retire within himself, being very modest by 
nature and appearing to suffer from the homage and respect 
with which he is surrounded. He rarely hazards an opinion in 
public, and it requires a grave circumstance or else an extraor- 
dinary event to force him out of his retirement. He disdains 
the world as well as the judgment of the crowd; firmly con- 
vinced that the destiny of the people depends on those who gov- 
ern them; it is his opinion that the riders alone are entitled to 



40 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



hold the reins of office, without ever inf orming their subalterns 
of their plans. He is not a politician but a soldier, who 
wishes to enjoy his works as a soldier and profit to the utmost 
limits by his victories. He is not ambitious but niggardly in 
regard to the blood of his soldiers, and on that account desirous 
of despoiling the enemy, so as to render that enemy incapable of 
doing harm, by reason of its poverty. He has no pity for those 
whom fate has pitted against him.' He pursues them with his 
vengeance so as to rob them of the means of a future revolt and 
revenge. He does not like to be engaged in a struggle with an 
adversary whom he deems redoubtable and believes to be danger- 
ous. It was for this reason that he rejoiced at the death of Gen- 
eral Skobeleff, and allowed himself to make public his satisfaction 
on the occasion of that of Gambetta. 

He sincerely abhors war, although he owes his present position 
to it; but when once engaged in it, he continues it to the end, 
and contrives to reap all the advantages possible in annihi^ 
lating his adversaries. Generally he is a man inpenetrable to 
all emotion, even his benevolence is mechanical, Moltke's 
nature is essentially that of a mathematician. Every sentiment 
is in his eyes a weakness of no value. He loves nobody. He is 
so afraid of being accused of allowing himself to be influenced 
by something or other, that he is often unjust. Although he 
possesses great influence, he has no favorites nor proteges. In a 
word, he is a hermit who lives clothed in his egotism, and who 
hates to be disturbed; a cold, impassive man, incapable of doing 
a good act for any one, having throughout his whole long life 
neither obliged any one nor asked a favor of any one. He is the 
greatest tactician of the age. This is a fact which even his most 
bitter enemies do not deny, but he is not one of those geniuses 
who develop by themselves and without the aid of circumstances. 
He was discovered, which was a very good thing for Germany 
for he would never have been able to reveal his talents himself. 
One cannot say that he does not know how to take advan- 
tage of the opportunities offered him; but he is a complete 
nullity in the ordinary affairs of life. People have been mistaken 
in their judgment of him many times. At the time he solic- 
ited permission to leave the Danish service for the purpose of 
entering the Prussian army, the secretary of war in his report to 
the king on the subject said: " The departure of Captain Moltke 
will not be a great loss to the Danish army." 

If the man who wrote this is still living, he must wonder great- 
ly at the perspicacity he formerly displayed. People attribute 
great political influence to the old marshal. Nothing is more un- 
true. Count Moltke has never taken any part in governmental 
affairs, nor has he ever been consulted on the subject. During 
the war of 1870, his military views alone have been followed, 
and if Prince Bismarck has sometimes shoved him to the front 
it has only been in the form of a lightning-rod, to turn away 
from his own head the thunderbolts of his victims or enemies. 
The only position in which he has enjoyed unlimited power has 
been that of chief of the general staff, and on many occasions he 
has triumphed over the chancellor, who has never been able to 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



41 



exercise his tyranny in army matters. During the last two years 
Moltke has become more retired than ever. Since he has Count 
Waldersee for an assistant, he takes very little interest in the 
affairs of his department, which besides are becoming too bur- 
densome for his age. Several times, indeed, he has asked to be 
pensioned, but has never been able to obtam the permission. He 
therefore continues at his post and even speaks at times in Par- 
liament in support of the government measures. Truth compels 
me to add that these occasions are very rare indeed, and only 
take place whenever a cause is desperate. 

If Count Moltke is a man of the sword, Marshal Manteuff el is 
a man of the pen. More of a diplomat than a soldier, he under- 
stands the diplomacy better than the art of war. His is an 
honest nature whose words can be believed. He is devoted to 
his king and to his country, but will never show it in a way his 
enemies would call disloyal. His nature while conciliatory is 
also energetic. 

He will never dally with his duty, but will always try to 
fulfill it in as little disagreeable a way for others as possible 0 
He is not a vindictive man. He is incapable of revenging a 
wrong or a calumny of which he is the victim. His reputa- 
tion is stainless, the inflexibility of his principles are as well 
grounded as those of any one, the chancellor himself not being 
able to weaken them, His position in Alsace-Lorraine is a 
most difficult one, and it was only after due deliberation that 
he consented to accept it, stipulating that he was to be allowed 
to govern these provinces after his own ideas, and not according 
to instructions from Berlin. These conditions are not to the 
taste of Prince Bismarck, who loves to dominate everywhere, 
even in those places where he has nothing to do. He has, how- 
ever, been obliged to submit to necessity, since Herr von Man- 
teuffel is a great favorite of the emperor. The marshal at the out- 
set of his term made great efforts to conciliate his constituents. 
He has often given proof of all the tact a German is capable 
of, and has on several occasions forestalled the vigorous meas- 
ures of the government and refused to apply them. He has 
always been a popular man, and seeks to obtain a measure of 
popularity in Alsace-Lorraine. His relations with Bismarck are 
strained, the chancellor having a spite against the marshal on 
account of his independent spirit, and the latter has a secret 
contempt for the prince on account of his duplicity. He knows 
how to do his duty better than his rival. Herr von Manteuff el 
would not be averse to leaving Strasbourg, where he is not com- 
fortable, like all honest men who are forced by circumstances 
to do things repugnant to their nature, 

General Kameke, formerly secretary of war, is an individual 
whom you will have occasion to meet, and it is therefore neces- 
sary for me to say a few words about him. He is a little, lively 
man, friendly and amiable, although commonplace, whose influ- 
ence has never amounted to much, whose best intentions have 
been destroyed and reduced to insignificance by the hate of the 
chancellor. Between these two persons an intense warfare has 
waged since the last tenjrears. in which Herr von Kameke has 



42 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



naturally been vanquished. The emperor esteems and protects 
him, notwithstanding, but the general understands that his posi- 
tion is untenable, and that his reputation would be compromised 
by remaining at a post from which rnore powerful persons than 
himself are trying to oust him. He, therefore, resigned oppor- 
tunely for himself, and is now endeavoring to forget the snubs 
he was forced to endure. He is a brave man and a good soldier, 
of mediocre ability, well-balanced mind, incapable of any in- 
trigue, too conscientious ever to make a success in the world, 
and who, during the duration of his term as secretary of war, 
has tried to do the most good he could, without ever having re* 
ceived any thanks therefor. 



THIRTEENTH LETTER. 

THE PRINCELY FAMILIES. 

These are the only ones who still enjoy a few privileges. At 
court they are the objects of special considerations which excite 
feelings of envy and are the cause of great rivalries. In a coun- 
try like Prussia, where the military rule, it is natural that the 
domination of one caste over another is not looked upon with fa- 
vor, especially when this class possess a title refused to old gener- 
als who have shed their blood for their country. Nevertheless in 
spite of this constant opposition the princely families have suc- 
ceeded in maintaining their rights. German pride has not de- 
creased, and the hereditary nobility still take precedence of others 
at court, although they have been obliged to submit to certain 
curtailments of their former privileges. As, for example, the 
high rank accorded by the emperor to the Knights of the Order 
of the Black Eagle. The rank which gave these knights prece- 
dence over the princes was the cause of a lamentable scandal in 
the high society of Berlin. Protests and objections were raised. 
Several princesses refused invitations to the court ball, the 
tumult rising to such proportion that the emperors, for the sake 
of peace and to satisfy the ladies of the court, was obliged to 
declare that the wives of the Knights of the Black Eagle did not 
participate in the honors accorded to their husbands. This com- 
promise, which pleased no one, appeased at least the first storm 
of indignation, and since that time a kind of armed neutrality 
reigns between the two camps, worse perhaps than actual war- 
fare. These trivialities will perhaps cause you to smile, but at 
Berlin they are of vast importance. Social life there revolves 
entirely around questions of etiquette and precedence. To dis- 
pute about a rank is an occupation" too, and does not require great 
ability. 

The number of princely families established at the capital is 
very restricted. The greatest number of the large houses remain 
there a few weeks during the session of the House of Lords, and 
as soon as the session is over take their departure. 

Very few of these families spend a winter there, and even a 
less number own a house or occupy apartments. And as for 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



43 



those who 6pend any more for social purposes they can be 
counted on one's fingers. 

In the front rank the Ratibors must be placed. The Duke 
of Ratibor, President of the House of Lords, is one of the 
largest proprietors in Silesia, where he enjoys great popu- 
larity. He even, at the time of the Vatican troubles, played 
an important political part, on account of the famous petition 
presented to the emperor by the few southern Catholics who 
supported the May laws. 

The Duke of Ratibor, it is said, has also been slightly burnt by 
the Strousberg failure; but a man so influential as he is can always 
draw himself out of an affair like that, especially when his vote 
is useful to the government. It is in virtue of this axiom that 
the duke was able to keep above water, where another person 
would have been drowned. 

Personally he is an amiable man, an accomplished grand seign- 
eur, not gifted with too much intelligence, but knowing how 
to get out of an unpleasant situation, no matter of what kind. 
He possesses faculties which appear to be contradictory and 
emanate simultaneously from tact and brutality. There are a 
good many defects in his character, especially with regard to 
principles and convictions, but he knows the art of hiding these 
shortcomings. He owns a fine house at Berlin and admirably 
does the honors, and where he gives from time to time a ball, 
which is always honored by the presence of the royal family, who 
treat him with particular consideration. 

The duchess, by birth a princess of Furstenberg, is so meritori- 
ous a woman that it is difficult to describe her. She possesses 
everything, goodness, charity and benevolence. She bears with 
admirable resignation the thorns of her life, which are said to 
be very sharp. Her entire existence is spent in doing good to 
others, and if there is any one*in this world worthy of the respect 
and veneration of all, it is assuredly the Duchess of Ratibor. 

Her sister, married to the Duke of Ujest, possesses similar 
virtues. As for the latter, his portrait is soon sketched. He is 
neither ambitious nor egotistical. He is simply a man who has 
always tried to satisfy his fancies even if they cost him some- 
thing besides money. Lately he has been rarely seen at Berlin, 
where he never stays more than two or three days at a time.. 
Prince Bismarck flatters, cajoles, and has him in his power. The 
emperor is friendly to him as to the rest of the world. Society 
receives him without welcoming him. The demi-monde regards 
him as one of its most generous benefactors. 

Count Otto von Stolberg-Wernigerode, the head of the at one 
time sovereign county family of that name, is the most intel- 
ligent of all the hereditary noblemen who adorn the court of 
Berlin. He has occupied several important posts with great 
credit, and even exercised for a few months the functions of 
vice-chancellor. He is a modest though active man, not with- 
out ambition, sincerely loving his country, but who, just on ac- 
count of these qualities, has not been able to get along with 
Bismarck, and has, therefore, been obliged to retire from polit- 
ical life. He is neither able to battle against difficulties nor 



44 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



vanquish them. He is easily discouraged, and has not met with 
enough real trouble in life to fully develop his energies. When 
he saw his efforts fail, he didn't have the courage to fight for 
them, and preferred to abandon the ground. 

He lives nearly the whole year at his castle in Wernigerode, 
near the Hartz Mountains, and leads a charming life there, sur- 
rounded by all the luxuries and comforts a princely fortune can 
command. Berlin no longer sees him so often, and his house, 
which at one time was presided over with such grace and ami- 
ability by the countess, remains closed. Count Otto von Stol- 
berg-Wernigerode will no doubt still play an important part in 
the future, when the chancellor will no longer be alive to anni- 
hilate him, and perhaps one will see in Prussia, thanks to him, a 
prime minister conscientious in everything, even in politics. 

I have already spoken to you in one of my previous letters of 
Prince Hatzfeldt-Trachenberg. This is a man who would sell 
his soul to the devil if he could receive a secretaryship in return. 

He comes and goes, now here, now there, striving to attain the 
summit of his ambition, and it is certain that, should he ever 
succeed in doing so, he will have a stroke of paralysis through 
excess of joy. Outside of this, he is quite a decent man, not 
otherwise offensive. His wife is a very handsome woman, but 
at the same time one of the proudest women who have ever 
lived. 

An enormously rich prince is Prince Pless, a charming man, 
of upright character, mediocre intelligence, amiable nature, per- 
sonally a nullity, but so materially surrounded by his worldly 
possessions that his personality is effaced by them. He owns the 
finest house in the city, and had the good sense to have it built 
by a French architect and French workmen. Here he gives balls 
which are famous for their elegance. His w T ife combines with 
great kindness and intelligence a stiffness which has robbed her 
of a good many friends amongst those who have mistaken tim- 
idity for pride. She is a real lady of the highest class, and it 
would be a good thing for Berlin if its society counted a larger 
number of such unions as that of Prince and Princess Pless. 

The Radziwill princes have also in their time played a great 
role in Berlin. Just now their influence has diminished materi- 
ally, on account of the enmity of the chancellor against them. 
The actual head of the family, Prince Anton, is a nice gentle- 
man, who during his whole life has had the luck to please every - 
body, and who is certainly worthy of the reputation he enjoys. 
A great favorite of the emperor, he has never abused the affec- 
tion of his sovereign, and has always held himself aloof from 
any intrigue. In society he is appreciated and more respected 
than his wife. 

The latter is a Frenchwoman, a grandniece of Talleyrand, 
whom she recalls by a surprising gift of wit as well as by her 
constant adoration of every rising sun, and by the disdain and 
contempt she has for all those who are not favored by fortune. 
She is a favorite of the empress whom she knows how to amuse 
by her witty and animated conversations, but whom she does 
u ot provoke against others, which would be often very easy for 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 45 

Frenchwoman. .^tant rare she has to assert her rank 

Her great f ault isth^onstent care sb e n a fa ht of 

and position m the *X IB e ~ t ^ forgets the respect she 

the respect due to her, that sfi ie enure y s h loves au . 
owes to others She is^m ^ n ' £ectioll as to 

thority above all, . wh ^ s J?.^Hch surrounds her. She is some- 
be blind to the vulgar flat ^.™£^f2f whom 

times wicked y disP^J.^ m8 j£ ° 0 ften attacks her own fam- 
she accuses ot imper Sections. S heotte ^ ^ 

ily, and her sis te^'^^S ^Euadan, still very young, 
her criticisms. This sist ;er m uw her country . 

She is pretty and elegant, buUto a f£° a address ed to 

women, affected, proud JfJ°™' ot the nomag^ ag 
her, and treating men as lf ^^f^J, and n0 one likes 

»^hi U ^«r S r s Ter f y e ^erved,andagreat 

Si Th?Pr5S e of Biron-Courlaud, the only representative of 
thXm^h|name is "^g^ T^olo^s 

atnsmeSe ^StyJ^^ ^SS« S 
complished lady, whose only fault is a too ^ f^ a * f P^ itt f e de . 
scandals, which she eagerly ptensto for the 

will admirably fill. , , f rprtain old prince 

nXiahamottj with hi, phj. ^ „3S^ec'ia S ° i 

Viatel, published the facta the next day_ The trautt o 



46 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



end of a year, 'and was forced to retire to his country estates and 
await forgiveness, which was not slow in arriving. Another 
exile was that of Prince Putbus, due to loss of fortune, and the 
prince remained away from Berlin for some years. 

He was more the victim of other people's unscrupulousness 
rather than of his own prodigality. He was received back with 
pleasure, and was accorded, together with his daughters, a 
hearty welcome. He has also a niece who was formerly cele- 
brated for her beauty, wit and the number of her admirers. 
Now she is a hermit, living retired from the world. She is liv- 
ing a solitary life, in charming apartments, arranged with ex- 
quisite taste, thinking only of her souvenirs. They are said to 
be sufficiently numerous to give her recreation. 



FOURTEENTH LETTER. 

HERB, VON BLEICHRODER AND THE PRINCES OF FINANCE. 

Let us enter the regions of finance. Believe me, it is worth 
the trouble. You will not regret this insight into a society 
which, though not the best, still controls the latter. Berlin is 
not Paris. In the capital of the new German Empire as well as 
in Russia, they still have prejudices which have long ago dis- 
appeared in France. One of these prejudices is a repugnance to 
shake hands with a Jew before a witness, or to go to his house or 
receive him in their own. I say advisedly witness, for when 
alone all these little scruples vanish. There isn't a city in the 
world where the children of Israel are more despised by society 
and more used by it. No matter what has been said to the con- 
trary, the German aristocracy is not anti-Semitic. She even is 
too indulgent toward the sons of Moses. She speculates with 
them in all stock affairs, and participates in the benefits derived 
from great public works. But she envelopes all this with mys- 
terious airs, and flatly denies it if necessary. Generally, the 
Berlin aristocrats try to escape the responsibilities of their con - 
duct by affecting a profound disdain for public opinion with 
regard to their financial transactions. 

The financiers are aware of their desire to be looked upon as 
grands seigneurs, and take a malicious pleasure in robbing them 
of their fortune and putting them at their mercy. The Jews are 
all-powerful in Berlin. They aspire to ruin the aristocracy, and 
their organs continually attack them, which is cruel indeed when 
one considers that it is the money of the vanquished which sup- 
plies them with the sinews of war. You will not meet any 
Jews in society, or else you will meet very few. To become ac- 
quainted with them, you must get yourself introduced to one of 
the financial barons, whose houses are great centers where dip- 
lomats meet. On their side the bankers make few efforts to at- 
tract the nobility to them. They patiently wait until they make 
the first step, knowing very well that gold is an irresistible power. 
They therefore come to them, either for a subscription or some 
sale for the benefit of a charity, or to borrow some money. 

All these little services are rendered by the financiers with 
good grace. They only ask in exchange from the borrower, or the 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



4? 



one obliged, an acceptance of an invitation to a ball or dinner at 
their house, which is difficult to refuse. 

The most famous banker in Berlin is Herr von Bleichroder. 
This man is a formidable power. Before 1866 he was nothing 
more than an unimportant little Jew. Little by little he has ar- 
rived, through energy and perseverance, at the position he occu- 
pies to-day, that of the richest man in Berlin. Sincere friend, 
flatterer and admirer of Prince Bismarck, he was the first one to 
divine the chancellor's great future. He attached himseif to his 
fortune with great perseverance and an obstinacy to which he 
undoubtedly owes his present grandeur. Physically, Herr von 
Bleichroder is a little old man with a pronounced Jewish face. 

He has the long, curly hair. His thick gray moustache does 
not fully hide a badly formed mouth and connects with a gray 
beard. His physiognomy, at once sad and smiling, expresses a 
singular mixture of duplicity and kindness. But strangest of 
all are two extinguished eyes behind a pair of blue spectacles, 
which now and then appear to be Looking at you. Although 
almost blind, he sometimes discerns the forms of persons in 
front of him. The greatest flattery which can be offered him is 
to talk about pictures and colors to him. He is dressed with 
care, and he can be seen any day walking in the park, leaning 
on the arm of his secretary. Since he is a widower, and appar- 
ent or secret infirmities trouble him, he rarely goes into society. 
Before the death of his wife he used to frequent several official 
drawing-rooms and take notice of his efforts to be received 
where he wasn't wanted. He is one of the most intelligent men 
of our epoch. His insight in financial and political questions is 
marvelous. He predicts events before even the circumstances 
necessary to provoke them are evolved. He knows how to take 
advantage of even the most insignificant things. He has seen 
princes and nations come to implore his protection. He 
knows that a word from him can enrich or ruin thousands of 
people. He is conscious of possessing a sovereignty greater than 
that of certain kings. And yet he hasn't sufficient moral dignity 
to curb one weakness, that of wishing to play a part in the world 
of society other than that of a millionaire. To be just it must 
be said that Madame Bleichroder was the one who pushed her 
husband in this path. Since she is dead, one no longer hears 
the stories which used to be circulated in Berlin at the expense 
of the great Jewish banker. 

One of these was his endeavor to get the entree to other houses 
by virtue of his position as the English consul. 

His perseverance in inviting the members of high society, in 
spite of their declinations, the infinite complacency he observed 
toward these persons, which even led him to the point of not 
inviting his financial friends at the same time, made him the 
laughing- stock of Berlin. Society was divided into two camps, 
of which one visited at Her von Bleichroder's and despised him, 
while the other one despised him but remained at home. 
Alas! how many of these have found out to their cost that it 
isn't so easy to treat such a personage so lightly. Herr von 
Bleichroder sometimes consents to swallow an injury, but only 



48 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



on condition of reserving his revenge, even accompanying his pity 
with a check for several thousands. If he wished to write a 
book recounting the number of society stars who have sought 
his aid, or whom he has saved from committing a false step and 
rescued from the brink of destruction, it would be far more in- 
structive than my counsels. He is generous by nature, although 
generous after his fashion. He knows how to oblige his equals, 
but he finds a diabolical pleasure in making his power felt to a 
grand seigneur or a noble lady forced to accept his charity. He 
finds great pleasure in humiliating them with his gross and 
odious familiarity. He claps the young man who comes to con- 
fess a gaming debt to him on the shoulder, kisses the hands of 
the woman who is forced to confide her embarrassments to him 
and asks his aid to pay her dressmaker. 

Herr von Bleichroder knows how to ingratiate himself in the 
confidence of the most reserved natures, and passes as the rescuer 
of those he contributes to ruin. 

He gives audiences after the manner of ministers. The chan- 
cellor uses him to communicate to the foreign press certain 
communications which he wishes to appear as if inspired by him. 
The journalists have a high regard for Herr von Bleichroder, 
perhaps because they have been deceived by him. The diplo- 
mats desire to dine at his house and court him. Every - one fears 
him, some pretend to despise him. All who are in need of 
money see him in their dreams. A great many obey him despite 
their inward revulsion. Very few are sufficiently good or disin- 
terested to judge him as he merits, and regard him as an example 
of the wonderful things which can be accomplished, the obsta- 
cles which can be overcome, by the Jewish race. 

Herr von Bleichroder has a partner named Schwabacher who 
is married to a Holland lady, a very charming woman. Thanks 
to her, he has conquered a portion of society. They are received 
in a number of houses, mainly those of foreigners, and it must 
be confessed that the tact, spirit and manners of Madame 
Schwabacher are. nowhere out of place. She gives very nice 
balls and exquisite dinners, and one at least never comes in con- 
tact in her house with any of that low society which is found at 
houses of the queens of her world. What strikes one in these 
ladies is their extreme beauty and polished manners, which, 
though not the true ones, are nevertheless agreeable. Their 
husbands, on the other hand, represent the Hebrew race in all 
its purity: the crooked nose, big eyes, coarse voice and a prema- 
ture stoutness. Nothing is missing, not even the peculiar fingers 
destined to rake in the money. They have no art in their 
conversation, their facilties being occupied with the millions 
they see in the distance. They are nevertheless curious types to 
study, and I advise you not to neglect to do so. However, do not 
throw yourself too soon into this world, and above all do not 
abuse your acquaintance. These are persons with whom you 
may dine occasionally, but must always keep at a distance. 

"Yon can pay court to the wives, but you must not forget that 
their manners are not those of high society, and that their 
principles, with few exceptions, are firmly established, Besides 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



49 



which their wit is more keen and developed than that of women 
of high society, and their criticisms of the latter are always 
amusing to hear. You who have so caustic a nature will be 
able to appreciate them better than any one else. 

I hope you will not become the friend of the Berlin Jew. The 
supremacy the race has gained in Germany is not precisely 
useful to the country. While admitting that this power of the 
German Jews is of no great harm to us, 1 warn you that the 
accumulation of such wealth in the hands of one race bodes no 
good to other ones. 



FIFTEENTH LETTER. 

THE COUNTESS OF SCHLEINITZ AND WAGNERISM. 

The Countess of Schleinitz is the best educated woman in 
Berlin. Her ability is from every point of view wonderful. 
She interests herself in everything relating to science and the 
arts. She is a splendid musician, understands painting, adores 
literature, and occupies herself with politics, having a horror of 
social problems. She has neither prejudices nor jealousies of 
any kind. Besides this, an accomplished woman of the world, 
no blue-stocking, knowing how to conceal her knowledge, 
benevolent by nature and too much occupied to have any time 
to hate or distrust. She goes very little in society and contents 
herself with receiving a select circle of acquaintances and friends, 
composed principally of artists and literary men. She is the 
only one, in Berlin who opens her doors to the latter, the balance 
of society disdaining to admit in its drawing-rooms "that 
crowd." 

Formerly Madame de Schleinitz received every evening, but 
the chancellor, who interferes in everything, even in the most 
insignificant things, rebelled against the quasi opposition of the 
countess. He gave her to understand that it would be better if 
she would discontinue her receptions. As a result of this singu- 
lar interference, the only intelligent center in Berlin was sup- 
pressed. At present Madame de Schleinitz continues to receive, 
but only at rare intervals and then only intimate friends. She 
has curbed the impetuosity of her character, which often induced 
her to confide in the first comer. She still receives political 
men, but more especially artists and writers, which society re- 
proaches her with. Happily the countess is too warm-hearted 
to take the least notice of what is said. She seeks her pleasure 
wherever she can find it, her intelligence not being able to con- 
tent itself with the follies and stupidities of fashionable life. 
She feels an irresistible desire to associate with people able to 
understand her and whose ability equals hers. Her house is a 
real republic. One can meet there painters, musicians, actors, 
journalists, political men, great lords and fashionable women. 
Free discussions are permitted there, opinions can be freely ex- 
pressed, and one is alway s encouraged by the gracious smile and 
exquisite tact of the hostess. 

The husband rarely appears at these reunions, and allows the 
countess full liberty. Count Schleinitz, a former minister of 



50 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



foreign affairs and now a member of the emperor's household, 
is a man of intelligence, already broken by age and disease. It 
can be said of him, that whether silent or when speaking he is 
never commonplace. 

Everything in him is solid gold. What distinguishes the count 
and countess most is their goodness and sincere cordiality toward 
those with whom they have relations. They are both kind- 
hearted people, which, perhaps, explains why they have so many 
enemies. However, as it is impossible for any one to be perfect 
in this world, the charming countess has always a weak spot, or 
rather a false note, in the harmony of her person. This defect 
consists in a passion, a fanatic regard for Wagner and his 
music. It was she w^ho made the composer fashionable in soci- 
ety. She never speaks of him except with religious respect, and 
when he lived and visited her house, she used to contemplate 
him in an ecstasy similar to that which shook Mary of Bethany 
when she lay at the feet of Jesus. To tell the truth, Madame de 
Schleinitz considers him as little inferior to the Saviour. He is for 
her a god, and her enthusiasm attains such a ridiculous height 
that one would call it madness, if one did not consider that she 
had to have some connecting link with her country. When one 
is not German by heart, nor spirit, nor tastes, one must some- 
how^ have one point of attachment to one's country, if it is only 
the passion for noise. The German character is personified 
in Wagner's music. In the same way that Bismarck represents 
the practical side, Wagner represents the artistic. From time 
immemorial the music of a country is inspired by the charac- 
teristics of its inhabitants. Italian airs are mainly gay, the 
Slavonic melodies melancholy, the songs of the Orientals plain- 
tive. 

German music is strong, sonorous, inharmonious, energetic, 
imperious, almost barbarous, just like the nation. It wishes to 
destroy the others, inspire itself on every one, and more charac- 
teristic still, it didn't develop nor give proof of its individuality 
until the moment in which the nation itself accomplished the 
same transformation. 

Wagner is the Bismarck of music. His work will last as long 
as that of the chancellor. They both suit the needs and aspira- 
tions of their epoch and country. They are both the men of the 
hour, men essential to a positive people eager for conquest, who 
disdain everything gentle and dreamy, for whom power and 
noise alone exist. 

And yet the success and influence of the Wagnerians are in a 
great measure due to fashion, this supreme arbiter, which even 
in Germany makes the law. At one time this fashion degen- 
erated into a farce. People went to hear Tannhauser and the 
Nibelungen simply because it was chic to do so and because high 
officials had given the example. They applauded for the same 
reasons, without knowing whether it was worth the trouble. 
They imitated the inspired airs of the really faithful disciples 
so as not to appear skeptical in their eyes, in the same way as one 
mechanically makes the sign of the cross when the holy water is 
passed around in church. The momentary triumph of Wagner 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



5! 



has in a great measure been caused by the noise made by his 
admirers around his personality. One can confidently predict 
that the Wagnerian fanaticism will not spread to foreign coun- 
tries, and even among his own countrymen his admirers will 
dwindle into a few enthusiasts. Even now since the death of 
the composer, his popularity has sensibly diminished, and the 
number of people who have undertaken a pilgrimage to Bayreuth 
this, summer was visibly less than last year. Very soon the 
sanctuary will be deserted or else will no longer be visited except 
from curiosity, like a Chinese pagoda or a Hindoo temple. Was 
it not from mere curiosity that so many persons went to hear 
Parsifal ? Very few undertook this journey out of admiration 
for the work of the composer. 

To the number of the last, however, we must cite the name of 
the Countess de Schleinitz. She at least is sincere in her blind 
admiration. Do not for a moment think that all the Wag- 
nerians in Germany are as exalted and positive as the countess. 
All varieties are met with, even moderate ones. Nevertheless 
I advise you always to express your opinion of the music of 
the master with great caution, for, in presence of a stranger, 
every German will energetically defend him, as something 
which belongs to him, which derives its source from the essence 
of the national character. The German loves Wagner, protects 
him vigorously and without reserve against all criticism. 

By doing this he believes he is loving, protecting and defend- 
ing the Fatherland. He displays an ardor equal to that he shows 
in preserving his conquests and his supremacy, which he has 
acquired by the grace of Bismarck the Wagner of politics. 



SIXTEENTH LETTER. 

FASHIONABLE SOCIETY IN BERLIN. 

It is now time to give you a general picture of Berlin society, 
to make known to you its manners, customs, its method of 
treating strangers, to acquaint you with its weakness, its fail- 
ings, its bad — and I was about to say its good qualities. 

Berlin society, my young friend, is not a society like others. 
It does not possess our intelligent skepticism. It is even want- 
ing, as far as the higher classes are concerned, in the ordinary 
German honesty. There is something corroded, uncivilized about 
it, which apparently dates from the early ages of history (I refer 
to questions of morality). It is entirely unconscious in its ac- 
tions, its manners are neither vicious nor degenerated, they are 
the, manners simply of our ancestors before the meaning of the 
word propriety had been invented. 

Lax morals flourish in Berlin like a plant in its favorite soil. 
Lo\ e is rarely met with, gallantry is a thing unknown. A Lau- 
zun or a Richelieu would be impossible there. 

But this society, so little scrupulous, as far as its own morals 
are concerned, becomes rigidly severe when it is the question of 
the morals of any other place. It watches the least departure, 
notes the slightest foibles, and even suspects secret thoughts. 
Berlin society is united like a Camorra, All who do not form 



52 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



an integral f>art of it arc bound to approve it and to submit to 
its commands under penalty of being put under its ban. The 
most senseless calumnies are spread about them, they are injured 
in what gives them their highest respect, they are attacked in 
what is dearest to them. 

A war is waged against them, in which force and numbers 
must one day or another triumph. For singular circumstances, 
this society, which has no conscientious scruples for itself, knows 
how to force others to be honorable, and, for the very reason 
that it is itself lacking, hates those who practice virtue and cul- 
tivate moral worth. When it overwhelms them, it does so both 
through jealousy and to drown, by the noise of its exclamations, 
the accusing voice of public opinion, which, without this, might 
perhaps mount even up to it. 

Without exaggeration, it may be said that one portion of Ber- 
lin society passes its life in spying on the other. That is why it 
is impossible to keep a secret there. To give you an idea of the 
gossip and tale-bearing born and flourishing on the banks of the 
Spree is a thing impossible. Suffice it to know that people there 
know your income better than your banker, your bill of fare 
better than your cook, the number of persons you received dur- 
ing the day better than your servants, and your thoughts better 
than yourself. One lives there, in a word, under a surveillance 
greater than that of the police. 

So much for the morals. As far as intelligence is concerned, 
no attempt even is made to cultivate it. As a rule, the Berlin 
woman of the upper classes neither reads, works, nor has any 
occupation. She passes her time in gossiping, dressing and un- 
dressing herself, and in seeking who can best aid her in doing so. 
She has not two serious thoughts in her head nor two honest 
impulses in her heart. 

Her preferences are vulgar, her influence nothing. She is 
lacking in grace, education and tact, she is loud and, unhappily 
for her, is eager to imitate the Frenchwoman in what the latter 
has that is flashy. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to make 
a fashionable lady of Berlin talk, so little is she aware of what is 
occurring, so much is she absorbed by her own person or by the 
doings and actions of her rivals. She offers no other resource 
to her admirers than to speak with her about her wishes. This 
is the type of the elegant lady of fashion who does what she 
pleases. In addition to her there is the housewife who is too re- 
spectable for me to describe, and who, like happy people, has no 
history. When the fashionable lady ages, as she has not settled 
down, learned nothing, when she has not even any longer the 
time to repair the irreparable outrage, she becomes jealous of 
the success of the young women, she casts reflections, attacks, 
scorches, scratches and imparts to society a sour element which 
adds wicked malevolence to laxity of morals. 

The gentlemen in high society in Berlin do not appear to me 
to be any more interesting. Those who are of any worth are, at 
the same time, very reserved. The old men surpass even the 
women in gossiping, and the young only know how to eat, 
dance and gamble. Their ideal is a supper after a ball. The 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



53 



amount danced and oaten in Berlin is almost fabulous. The 
officers, in particular, bring to these two occupations a greater 
ardor, if that is possible, than that which animates them on the 
drill-field. 

A figure of a quadrille is, in their eyes, a sacred thing:, and a 
supper, an affair of state. One never says after an evening's 
reception: " It was very amusing," or " very tiresome last even- 
ing;" but, " Good table " bad table." 

But, you will ask me, are there not in Berlin some houses 
where one may agreeably spend an hour or two ? Well, no, 
they don't exist, at least not for foreigners. As a rule, each one 
lives for himself, no one seeks to share his thoughts with others, 
or experiences the need of exchanging his impressions, of com- 
municating his views of men and things; no one finds any 
pleasure, except Madame von Schleinitz, of whom I have just 
spoken, in assembling witty spirits around her. It is impossible, 
in Berlin to keep up with what is happening in Europe. It's 
all well enough for this city to be at present the center of the 
political world, one hears there the topics of the day discussed 
less tli an anywhere else. One vegetates there without taking an 
interest in anything, and life, altogether, is so arranged there 
that it is very difficult to learn what is taking place in any other 
circles of society but that of the court. A sort of a terrorism 
rules over the thoughts, one does not dare to speak about what 
one sees, much less point out to others what one fears. For- 
eigners, though treated with much politeness, are, nevertheless, 
always considered as intruders, and they are made to feel this in 
a thousand ways, in society as well as in the clubs, admission to 
which is often refused them. 

Among the diplomats themselves there are only a few who 
have succeeded in fully pleasing, and they are those who have 
become entirely Berlinized, that is to say, who love dancing, 
gossip, champagne and lobster- salad, after midnight. 

Berlin society, in spite of its caprices and vices, is nevertheless 
interesting to observe. One may witness there a singular pride 
which is not without its force in a victorious people. The Ger- 
mans despise other nations, accuse them of all the faults they 
have themselves; laxity of morals is one of their most frequent 
reproaches, and you may see, according to these few pictures, 
that this charge may be turned against them. If they have not 
t he sprightliness which we, which the French have, it is perhaps 
because their intellectual baggage is even more slender. 



SEVENTEENTH LETTER. 

THE THREE SISTERS. 

Twenty years ago, they were young, pretty and attractive; 
they had long brown curls, wasps' waists, a transparent complex- 
ion; in fine, all the attributes of the Three Graces, and they were 
so called. To-day, their brown hair has become ashy-colored, 
their teeth have acquired a new whiteness, their cheeks a bor- 
rowed freshness, and their lips a more brilliant carmine. The 
waist has become stouter, but its suppleness is replaced by its 



54. 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



majesty. The name itself of the Three Graces has changed; it 
has given place to that of the three sisters. 

These three sisters are the most important persons in Berlin 
society. One of them is a widow, still beautiful, very rich, and 
very elegant. I will not speak to you about her private conduct; 
if she has had adventures, they are to-day blended under the 
general heading of numerous and brilliant successes. Besides, 
what matters whether one has been calumniated when one has 
become an Arsinoe? 

The beautiful widow is artificial in her appearance and artful 
in her morals. She no longer thinks of anything but her toilet, 
her furniture,, her respects, her weekly receptions, and rarely 
of gallantry. 

Her youngest sister has not yet turned her back on the 
vanities of this world, probably because she still has a husband. 
She is the least endowed with intelligence of the three sisters; 
but, in revenge, vanity is the most developed in her. Like her 
sisters, she is a woman of method and calculation, who has no 
extravagance to reproach herself with, who has committed no 
folly except for cosmetics, the toilet, in fact all that may be 
used under the label 4 ' Bloom of Youth." She loves to be 
surrounded by admirers, and she attracts a great number, es- 
pecially among the very young men, whom she prefers to select 
from the ranks of officers belonging to the crack regiments. 
The body-guards have her greatest sympathy. This swarm of 
young admirers, of pages, enchants her, for it gives her the 
illusion of a second youth and forms a sort of court around her. 
She is, besides, the queen of fashion. It is good style to admire 
the countess — have I already told you that she is a countess ? 
As far as I am concerned, in the last days of my stay in Berlin 
I had a kind of respect for the care she took to remain beautiful. 

My sentiment was something analogous to that we experience 
in the face of an ancient statue well preserved. Moreover, the 
countess is amiable. She smiles on pretty women, knows how 
to hide the envy they inspire in her, and makes a great show of 
the interest she takes in ugly persons: she, by turns, consoles 
the wives neglected by their husbands, and the husbands 
wearied of the conjugal hearth. Her influence is enormous. 
Never was woman greater in the domain of fashion. She is an 
absolute sovereign. 

The eldest sister of these three ladies has no importance, except 
that she is one of the three sisters. She has neither the preten- 
sions of her younger sisters, nor their commonplace amiability. 
She is a woman endowed with an excellent heart, good-natured, 
noisy, vulgar, a sort of type met with in the novels of Paul de 
Kock. She takes offense at nothing, never offends anybody, is 
agreeable to all, takes life from its gayest side, and pets her 
eldest daughter to excess. She makes no pretenses of youth, 
has never been beautiful, and keeps open house every evening. 
People come there to play, smoke, dance, and lounge at pleasure; 
one even finds there comfortable easy-chairs to pass the night. 

Her salon is among the most curious to study as to its compo- 
sition, and if you should ever obtain an introduction, I advise 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



56 



you to keep your eyes and ears open. In Berlin, Madame 
* -x- * > s receptions enjoy a reputation which, I must say, is 
justified. Besides, it would do so everywhere, for it is impossi- 
ble to find, in good society, a house in which one may enjoy the 
advantages of a club and, at the same time, the charms of a 
private house, rendered agreeable by the presence of young 
women, or women fancying that they are still young. 

In this salon all strive to make the men forget that they be- 
long to a circle of society in which women are to be honored and 
are worthy of it, and in which it is the custom to be polite to 
them. 

The greatest freedom reigns there. As soon as the lamps are 
lit in the drawing-room it begins to fill. The frequenters arrive 
in succession, and, after having saluted the mistress of the house 
and often even before doing so, light their cigarette, sit down at 
a gaming-table or converse by twos, on a sofa. There is never 
any general conversation, but a great deal of private. Happy 
couples promenade through the parlors, voluntarily halting in 
those which are the most deserted, and occasionally admiring the 
portrait of a celebrated actress, a portrait which is one of the or- 
naments of the sumptuous dwelling. Glasses of beer are passed 
around; the young officers take-off their tunics or dolmans; some 
even go so far as to tap the daughter of the house on the shoul- 
der; everybody calls her by her pet name. 

Look, on that lounge is seated a dark-featured woman, still 
beautiful, with stiff yet supple waist, with wide open nostrils 
like those of a race- horse, and with a complexion formed with 
an exquisite art, in harmony with the shade of her dress. This 
woman has a steely glance; her words are short but full of de- 
termination; at the first sight one divines in her an icy soul, the 
calculating instincts of women of marble. 

At her side a man, with blonde whiskers, whose too large nose 
does not destroy his handsome countenance, is leaning against a 
table. Since three years he comes there, since three years he 
gazes at her. The attitude is always the same, the gaze only has 
changed. At first the expression was submissive, later on it 
was admiring, now it is growing tired. She obstinately persists 
in guarding this last conquest, in enchaining this liberty which 
wishes to be free again. How long will the struggle last, and 
who will gain the victory ? 

The husband is playing cards at a distance and seems to be 
indifferent to this drama. He has a stupid and silly look. His 
function consists in surrounding his wife with luxury. He has 
not one ambition, and enjoys life like a real Georges Daudin. 
Sometimes an enigmatical smile passes over his lips. Would he 
take a melancholy pleasure to see each morning the wrinkles 
deepen on his wife's brow ? 

Further away, reclining in an easy chair, a cup of tea at his 
side, is an already elderly man, a diplomat; it is a minister with 
an intelligent countenance but shifting glance. He is absorbed 
in a most animated conversation with a woman, whose black 
dress is ornamented with orange-tinted ribbons — but I perceive 
that it is the beautiful countess of whom I have already spoken, 



56 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



to you, and who this time has deserted the army for the diplo- 
matic ranks. 

There in that obscure corner a young, light-conrplexioned girl, 
almost a child, with candid gaze and sympathetic features, is 
listening to a tall young man in the uniform of a body-guard. 

They are still at the preliminaries, which are termed, in the 
language of the society that I have just described, " a museum." 
This word appears strange to you, and you ask me to explain it. 
I have searched a long while, and have found that in a German 
sense it means the poetical moment in love, the time when one 
makes verses and cultivates the Muse, A graceful joke, pre- 
eminently German. The first time that I heard this word I had an 
idea, I, who am a man of the eighteenth century, and who knows 
the German scientific manias, that this museum described the 
betrothal phase, the embryo phase of human sentiments, and the 
psychologic state of a love destined to be classified and labeled and 
placed in a bottle in the show-window of marriage. But to re- 
turn to the salon of one of the three sisters * * * I cannot 
conceal from you that the absolute free and easy style which 
reigns there has done an injury to Berlin society. It has spoiled 
it, just as men of good education are spoiled when they consent 
to no longer observe the proprieties. I have often noticed that 
good company becomes the worst when it throws off its habitual 
conduct. 

People have become so accustomed to pass their evenings in 
a society which might be termed German Bohemian, that they 
have lost the taste for good society. • 



EIGHTEENTH LETTER. 

HERR STOECKER AND THE JEWISH QUESTION. 

Among the problems of her political life which Germany must 
solve, the least one is assuredly not that formidable Jewish ques- 
tion, which is daily becoming more serious and menacing. The 
attempt has been made to declare the anti-semitic agitation as 
factious and artificial. Its importance has been attributed to 
the efforts of Pastor Stoecker and his adherents, and a prompt and 
complete fiasco has been predicted. I regret to say that I am 
forced to differ with this opinion. I believe, on the contrary, that 
the hate which exists in Germany against the Jews, a tenacious 
and blind hate, will only go on increasing in proportion as the 
influence and wealth of the Hebrew families augment. 

All men are more or less envious, and the Germans surpass all 
others on this point. There is, therefore, nothing astonishing in 
the Germans feeling an antipathy for a race which, little by little, 
has supplanted them in all the vital questions of the country. 

He who has not seen the Jews in Germany, and studied them 
in Berlin, can form no idea of what they absorb and lay hands 
on. At an epoch like ours, in which money is the only force 
which is respected, where the greed for wealth expresses itself 
in every conceivable way, the Jews in Germany are the only 
ones who have conquered this power and here know how to pre- 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



57 



Serve it. Germany is not a country like England or France, 
where every one believes himself obliged to work, where no one 
is ashamed to set to work to build the edifice of his fortune. 
In this prejudiced country, where no career except that of arms, 
is looked upon as honorable, where a nobleman, by the mere fact 
of his birth, imagines himself to be entitled to live in idleness, 
the nobility, little by little, has become as poor is it is proud. 
It suffers, nevertheless, from this material degradation, and since 
a few years attempts to remedy this state of affairs, by risky 
transactions or stock speculations, for which they desire a third 
party, who is generally a Jewish banker or broker. 

All Berlin, at the time I was leaving, spoke of a catastrophe 
which happened last year, to one of the most brilliant officers of 
the guards, whose wife was one of the stars of the social world, 
and who was forced to leave the army on account of being en- 
gaged in a money matter in which a Jew had drawn him. The 
story created a big sensation because the parties were well 
known; but how many similar adventures remained secret. • 
How many have the same commencement and the same ending, 
and are between the same people, tending only to increase the 
hate of the German nobility against the Jewish bankers. What 
is most unpardonable is being made the dupe of those one wishes 
to fool. In crying " Death to the Jews," the German nobleman 
hopes to participate in the spoils of the favored sons of Israel 
and get back the money he has lost. As for the people, their 
antipathy is explained by the fact that they are continually un- 
der the domination of the Israelite, who has bought the factories 
which give sustenance to the laborer, and accumulated the cap- 
ital which serves to purchase pleasures for the rich. What I 
have said of the high classes of society is equally true of the 
lower classes. The nation by itself is not capable of spontaneous 
efforts; she only knows how to obey impulses; moral force is 
wanting to her. She can neither invent, direct, produce, nor 
take the initiative. She has neither the commercial spirit of the 
English, the imitative spirit of the Americans, nor the energy 
of the Frenchmen. She is made to fight, to destroy, and like 
their ancestors, the Teutons, she is absolutely incapable of re- 
placing what she destroys. 

They are an industrious, persevering people, but indolent in 
regard to invention, organization, and combination of the facul- 
ties. The German excels in executing, but he is unable to con- 
ceive. He is an admirable instrument, a good tool, but he never 
does anything great except on a restricted space. He imitates, 
but does not execute. He is a nullity, and incapable of under- 
standing the industrial and financial questions. The few excep- 
tions to this rule only tend to affirm it. 

Men like Borsig and Krupp are phenomenons, who will not be 
reproduced so soon. Commerce itself, like the banking and 
manufacturing interests, is in the hands of the Jews. These 
last are then the absolute masters of the national activity, and 
one cannot wonder that, in a moment of passion, the noble, the 
citizen, and the workman unite in cursing the Semitic tyranny. 
Bismarck is 1 , the only one who has frankly accepted the aid of the 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



Jews without any other thought than that of obtaining from this 
alliance a guarantee of achieving his colossal work in peace. 

The Rev. Dr. Stoecker, against whom so much has been writ- 
ten, is only the mouthpiece of the great majority of the general 
people. The pastor is not an isolated individuality preaching in 
behalf of his own personal ideas, but a man in whom is incar- 
nated the entire soul of a nation, as were, for instance, the Duke 
de Guise during the League, Luther during the Reformation, and 
Danton during the French Revolution. One might not agree 
with him, and blame his ferocious energy, but any one who has 
lived in Germany knows why he is the apostle of a party. 

The English, who protest so energetically against the crusade 
undertaken by Stoecker, do not understand the cause which led 
to it. In their country, thanks to their commercial spirit as 
well as to their political genius, the Jew has become an English- 
man and has identified himself with the interest of his adopted 
country. It is the same in France, where the Jew works for the 
prosperity of a nation which has become his own. In Germany 
the case is different. Here one is confronted with the presence of 
a powerful material force, which has turned back on those to 
whom she owes her development. 

The Rev. Dr. Stoecker is therefore not a fanatic, but a man 
who comprehends the danger his country is running. Only he 
deceives himself if he believes he can avert this danger by the 
expulsion of the Jewish race. It is not sufficient to get rid of 
one evil, one must see to it that no greater evil is caused by 
doing so. In this connection I would like to know what would 
become of the material greatness of Germany, if Herr Stoecker's 
ideas were carried out. The former would be very much em- 
barrassed at his victory. An edict of Nantes or a Saint Barthol- 
emew against the Jews in Germany would be a calamity. But 
it wouldn't be the same if the pastor would combat the Jews by 
their own arms, by learning their commercial secrets, by fighting 
them on their own ground and disputing with them for that 
power of money of which they have unlimited control to-day. 
If, in the conduct of his affairs, the German Jew is sometimes 
small and servile, he has known, however, how to preserve in his 
general race characteristics, a kind of independence against 
the brutal force of the grenadiers of Frederick, which serves 
him in good stead. 

Seneca says that a nation usually ends by being punished for 
her faults by the excess of ber good qualities. Germany is a 
striking example of the truth 01 this axiom. She has up till 
now triumphed over her enemies, thanks to her faculty for 
passive obedience, her tranquil perseverence and proud force. 
She has defeated all her foreign adversaries. But she is unarmed 
against those she placed in her own home, who live under 
the protection of her institutions and her laws. She ought to pull 
down the flag to them, confess her inability to annihilate the 
power and influence of adversaries of whom she ought to have 
made partners, if she had had the practical savior-faire of the 
English or the assimilative spirit of the French. 

But what I here tell you no German will confess, Pastor 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



Stoecker least of all. If you find time I would advise you to 
make the acquaintance of this remarkable man, one of the 
most distinguished men in Germany. In spite of his prejudices 
and his mystical piety, so often to be met with in Protestant 
pastors, he will not fail- to interest you by his picturesque lan- 
guage. The arguments he makes, the violent forms of his at- 
tacks, the sincere convictions with which he develops false 
theories, make of him a man incapable of dallying with his 
conscience, which is rigidly austere. He has submitted to nu- 
merous attacks with a stoicism worthy of the ancients, answer- 
ing hate with scorn. His influence is greater than people out- 
side imagine, perhaps even more so than he or his friends 
suspect. 

When the history of the first twenty years of the German 
empire shall be written Herr Stoecker will not fail to occupy a 
place as the organizer of the anti-semitic movement. 



NINETEENTH LETTER. 

THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS. 

The diplomatic corps plays an important part in Berlin, which 
is explained by the little development society has there. In this 
big city, the number of persons who compose what is termed 
high society is so small that it could not exist without the aid of 
a foreign element. This alone explains the reception accorded 
the diplomatic body in Berlin. Balls and parties are expected to 
be given by them where they can dance and eat. As for the 
secretaries and attaches, they do the best they can with re- 
spect to conforming to German manners. In short, the diplo- 
matic body is treated like persons one has need of, and they are 
accorded no more than their utility requires. The dean of the 
diplomatic body is Lord Odo Russell (who has recently been 
created Lord Ampthill), who represents her Britannic majesty. 
He is a man of great intelligence and remarkable shrewdness. 
With exquisite tact, and a certain distinction, he has filled sev- 
eral important posts. He is a diplomatist of the old school, 
knowing how to hide his thoughts, divine those of others, 
keep silent when necessary, and speak on the proper occasion. 
For a long time ambassador in Italy, his intimacy with Cardinal 
Antonelli has permitted him to acquire a subtlety which is al- 
most Italian, and which is rarely found in an Englishman. 
Very observing by nature, he has become more so through ex- 
perience. He has known how to weigh characters, discover 
their little failings, and make use of their susceptibilities and 
mean instincts. He never gives his real opinion of things or in- 
dividuals. ^ He has the prudence of a serpent while pretending to 
be expansive. He serves his country more than those who 
govern it, obeys tradition, and is neither the servitor of a min- 
ister or a cabinet. 

During the Congress of Berlin he apparently sank from view, 
but under-handedly he rendered the greatest services to Eng- 
land, which might have been compromised by the zeal of Lord 
Beaconsfield, if there had not been some one to soften the im- 



60 



BEBLTN SOCIETY. 



petuosity and transpose into diplomatic French the too expres- 
sive phrases of Disraeli. 

Lord Ampthill is a great admirer of the chancellor. Is he sin- 
cere or not in his enthusiasm ? This is difficult to say. For 
without being a sphinx, this embassador is impenetrable. With 
the greatest amiability he turns a conversation aside when he 
suspects it of becoming dangerous. In the same way he pos- 
sesses the talent of making you believe that you are his con- 
fidant when he has merely spoken a few commonplace sentences. 
No one is more able to answer or squelch a journalist than he, 
and in so fine a way that the poor reporter never knows that he 
has been made a dupe of. In all Lord Odo Eussell's words lie a 
grain of truth, which even when it does not seem to be very 
true, is still no lie. Of all the diplomats accredited to the Court 
of Berlin he is the only one, I* believe, who has divined Prince 
Bismarck's thoughts and judges him as that man of iron merits, 
without injuring the pleasant relations he has with him, in spite 
of the constant divisions which occur between them on political 
questions. 

The chancellor appreciates the English embassador and even 
fears him a little, because he suspects him of divining him. He 
does not forget that Lord Ampthill, despite his apparent amia- 
bility, preserves the English coldness and that be will not allow 
himself to be seduced by flatteries nor blinded by friendly assur- 
ances. 

He will resist every attempt at corruption, and with 
imperturbable calmness reveal what portion of the promises 
made will be kept and what left undone. While remaining an 
accomplished man of the world and a courteous diplomat, he 
knows how to assert himself as a statesman, capable of seeing 
through all the most Machiavellian schemes of the chancellor. 
He married a daughter of Lord Clarendon. Lady Ampthill, 
without having the intelligence of her husband, is nevertheless 
a woman of wit, who strives to extend her circle of acquaintances 
and keep herself informed of the movements of society. She is 
the ideal of an embassador's wife. She is made to shine and 
reign over a household. No one would think her the wife of an 
ordinary citizen. To look at her one would think she was formed 
for the position she occupies. Very distant, she possesses pride 
she mistakes for solemnity. She is able to be spiteful and con- 
found any one guilty of attacking her as a fashionable woman 
and the wife of an embassador. Her conversation is full of 
resources but she is more friendly to those w T ho flatter than to 
those who honor her. She loves to rule and exercise in her draw- 
ing-room a kind of royalty. She has perhaps been a little 
petted in Berlin but she is grateful for it, for there is no one in 
the diplomatic body who spends so much money for social 
purposes as the English embassadress. Her parties and dinners 
are always arranged in an admirable manner, and if she desires 
to be a sovereign, it cannot be denied that she would fulfill with 
joy the duties of a sovereign toward her subjects. 

The Austrian ambassador and his wife do not cut such a large 
figure in Berlin. Count Szechenyi, when one sees him for the 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



Gi 



first time, appears to be a very agreeable man. When one visits 
him more frequently, one finds him to be very monotonous, and 
if one knows him longer still he begins to be very tiresome, since 
he always repeats himself. He is one of those talents which 
soon exhaust themselves and with whom one soon perceives 
that one must furnish almost the whole conversation. Never- 
theless he knows how to listen charmingly, and is a precious re- 
source for bores. No one knows whether he is a good or bad 
diplomat, having never had anything to do than maintain be- 
tween two governments friendly relations which have already 
been created. He is a model of courtesy. If he never divines 
any of the chancellor's plans he in turn never seeks to oppose 
them. He knows how to live at peace with the whole world, 
and he will die firmly believing that he has contributed to the 
great political work of his time. If he was wealthier he would 
be admirably suited for his position; unhappily the retrench- 
ments he is forced to make sour his temper and he has been 
known to complain of the cost of his meager parties. His wife 
makes the mistake of imitating him in this particular, and allow- 
ing the public an insight into her domestic embarrassments. 
She is, notwithstanding, a good and charming woman, very ser- 
viceable, but not formed for the position in which she finds her- 
self. 

Before the incumbency of the present minister, France was 
represented at Berlin by Count de Saint- Vallier, persona 
grata in certain circles and a bete noir in others. He is very 
difficult to describe. Supple as a reed, slippery as an eel, sly as 
a fox, he sometimes falls, but always lands on his feet. 

He is a real old man of the mountain. Although his convic- 
tions are impregnable, they permit him certain compromises with 
men and things of which he has need. He believes himself to 
be useful but is only ambitious. He thinks he is working for 
his country, whereas, he is only working for himself. A man 
of great intelligence, he sometimes lacks steadiness and has not 
always the tact to know he forces a note. As a diplomat he is 
very adroit and often perspicuous, although he has allowed 
himself on occasions to be deceived. He often falls into a trap 
when the trap is slyly prepared and tickles his vanity. He loves 
to be thought important, and with this view, he took care to be 
immediately on good terms with Bismarck. The chancellor 
received him with more cordiality than he extended to Monsieur 
de Gontaut-Biron. Count de Sam t- Vallier has with marvelous 
tact unburdened himself from the faults of his predecessor. He 
has kept aloof from all the little intrigues into which the favorite 
Duke Decazes allowed himself to be drawn. Thanks to this 
conduct, he has been able to secure a protector in the person of 
the chancellor and made himself a friend of the empress by a 
real or simulated friendship for her maid-of -honor, the Countess 
von Hacke. But by continually looking after his own position, 
he has in a measure forgotten the dignity of his position as an 
embassador. I believe his dream was not to remain embassador 
in Berlin, but to become minister of foreign affairs in France. 
With this aim in view he is continually on the fence, 'often. 



<>2 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



blaming at Paris what he approved at Berlin, and vice versa. 
This much must be said of him, that he has never been a 
party man, but it must also be said that he has constantly 
looked after his own interests. 

He is capable of being a devoted friend and an excellent coun- 
selor, but in politics he is a disciple of Talleyrand, one of those 
men who know how to represent the fortunes and misfortunes 
of a country equally well, and draw a profit from them. The 
French embassador was absolutely detested by the former 
friends of M. de Gontaut, and I know that they were all 
pleased at the recall of M. de Saint- Yallier. 

A minister whom I would advise you to study, for he is worth 
the trouble, and conciliate, for he is dangerous, is M. Sabouroff, 
who represents his Majesty Alexander the Third. A man of 
great intelligence, he, as M. de Saint-Vallier, confounds the 
interests of his country with his own. He is one of those dar- 
ing men who never scruple at anything, and know how to get 
rid of a friend as well as of an enemy. He is one of those who 
maintain that the end justifies the means. Thanks to his abso- 
lute indifference for what he calls embarrassing sentimentality 
he always keeps himself on the surface of the political ocean. 

His dexterity is great and his talents unquestioned. I doubt 
whether it is his constant preoccupation to utilize them for 
the benefit of his mission. He is a lucky diplomat rather 
than a statesman. He has been able to create a good position 
for himself at Berlin, and Prince Bismarck is grateful to him 
for paying more attention to the ladies than to Russian diplom- 
acy. Personally, M. de Sabouroff is the most agreeable man in 
Berlin. He is an exquisite conversationalist, an eminent arch- 
eologist, of perfect taste, a great collector of Grecian antiquities 
and naturally a great admirer of modern dresses. 

Count de Launay, the representative of the king of Italy, and 
Sadullah Bey, the envoy of the sultan, do not deserve a long 
description. 

The first named would be very agreeable were it not that he is 
hampered by his wife, whose jealousy freezes him and prohibits 
him from showing his true nature. Madame de Launay, how- 
ever, is not a fool, but she is as distrustful as she is witty. Un- 
fortunately she is deaf, which renders a conversation with her 
impossible. Perhaps Providence wished to spare her a good 
many victims who would otherwise be lashed by her spiteful 
tongue. The couple once in a while give a ball, where the heat 
is unbearable and the refreshments very poor. These are the 
kind of receptions given by the Count and Countess de Launay. 
At any rate, these receptions are superior to those of their Turk- 
ish colleague, who sacrifices his feelings by drinking other peo- 
ple's wines, and forbids himself to offer any for fear of trans- 
gressing the law of the Prophet. 

I will not take up much time with the embassadors and en- 
voys of the little powers or secondary kingdoms. Only Spain 
and Portugal are worth sketching in detail. Monsieur Merry y 
Colon de Benomar, the Spanish minister, is a little old man, still 
hearty in appearance, a great admirer of the ladies, and proud of 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



63 



descending through them from Christopher Columbus, He 
displayed his diplomatic talents in Morocco, and allowed people 
to know that he could do the same thing in Europe. In society 
he is very amusingand has a pronounced Spanish accent. Since 
his marriage a little more importance has been given him, and 
the number of those who used to call him Monsieur Merry is 
fast decreasing. 

His wife is a good, pretty and honest woman who has only 
one ambition—to become an embassadress, which she is sure to 
be one of these days. 

Portugal, just at present, has no minister at Berlin and is rep- 
resented by a simple charge d'affaires, Monsieur de Soveral, who 
is a great favorite with the ladies. 

He is very handsome, too handsome. His conquests have sur- 
passed those ever made by any man in Berlin. 

All the fashionable ladies think it a point of honor to be com- 
promised by the handsome Portuguese. He is not a wicked man. 
He is the spoiled darling of the ladies. For a long time he was 
without a rival, but the arrival of a dashing Austrian military 
attache robbed him of a little of his glory. Major von Stein- 
inger is better suited to the ladies than even Monsieur de Sov- 
eral, for he possesses more distinction of person. 

The Greek ambassador is Monsieur Rangabe, who is better 
known on account of literary works than for his political abil- 
ities. As for the other diplomatic personages, there are so few 
of them that a sketch of them would be easy. 

France has for Secretary of Legation, Count D'Aubigny, an 
amiable little man, witty as all boulevardiers, and possessing all 
the Parisian graces. His wife is slightly eccentric for fear of 
being commonplace, and is often very impolite. 

Sir John Walsham, first secretary of Her Majesty Queen Vic- 
toria, is a tall, thin, angular man, "a true son of England, and 
one of those functionaries who accomplish their daily needs more 
from routine than from ambition or love of travel. He will 
advance in his career by the law of hierarchy, and will retire 
from the political arena with the title of minister plenipotentiary, 
honestly gained. His wife is a little woman of good heart and 
playing a very ineffective and futile part. A nice person at bot- 
tom, but not able to understand the meaning of a word nor the 
consequences which might result from a little hasty language. 

She receives a great deal above all, diplomatists. Not alone 
the husband, but the wife neither is in the odor of sanctity at 
their embassadress, who has too much wit not to be annoyed by 
so much littleness and nonsense. 

An amiable, charming, and good woman, although a little too 
German, is Madame d'Arapofl, wife of the first secretary of the 
embassy of Russia. Since the twenty years she is living in Ber- 
lin, she has acquired the tastes and manners of the city, and to 
love it, if that is possible, better than her own country. Hap- 
pily, what she has not been able to assimilate is malevolence, a 
fault she hasn't got. Madam e'A.rapoff is one of those women 
who are too much occupied by social duties, the visits, the pur- 
chases to niake ? the dresses to try on, that they have no time tQ 



BERLIN SOCIETY* 



give to the others. Her life is a continual fete. She adores 
society so much that she never sees its trivialities or its defects. 
She has two charming daughters, of whom one is the younger 
sister by reason of the freshness of her wit. 

Very much sought after in society, she is, perhaps, the only 
example of a diplomatist's wife being acceptable all over. Her 
country-women of the Russian embassy are jealous cf her, and 
do not love her. It is even said the ambassador himself has not 
disdained to aid little intrigues to have his first secretary 
recalled. 

I terminate this letter not having, I think, forgotten any im- 
portant person. 



TWENTIETH LETTER. 

THE MIDDLE-CLASSES. 

If it is possible, I earnestly advise you to try to obtain an in- 
troduction to some houses of the middle-classes or to those be- 
longing to that petty nobility which exists only in Germany, 
and, which by its customs, mode of life, its very opinions, 
approaches more the middle than the upper- classes. 

We must be just, before all, even toward our rivals, and you 
would have only a false idea of German society if you judged it 
by the specimen "presented by the fashionable drawing-rooms 
of Berlin. 

When we wish to learn the public opinion of a country, it is 
indispensable for us to address those who represent that opinion. 
You will not find these people in Berlin except among the small 
bondholders, minor officials, professors and scientists, but I will 
make the latter the subject of another letter. At present, I 
wish to conduct you into one of those worthy and tranquil 
households where you can see the German as he was before be- 
ing contaminated by the demoralization of fashionable society. 

Follow me, then, and when we return from our pilgrimage, 
you will perhaps laugh over certain ridiculous things discovered 
on the way, but you will not regret having undertaken it. 

At the outset, we must climb up two, often even three 
always very steep flights of stairs. If the house belongs to the 
class of new buildings the stair-case will be of marble with a 
wrought iron baluster. In the opposite case it will be of wood, 
but always covered with a frightful carpet, which changes its 
shade on every floor, according to the taste of the tenant on 
whose landing it stops. You ring; a girl in an apron and white 
cap comes to the door and informs you that the " Herrschaften n 
(translate lords) are at home. 

After having removed your overcoat in a sort of very narrow 
hall, in which the gas burns the whole day, and which takes the 
place of the ante-chamber, you are introduced into a small par- 
lor in which about ten persons are seated in chairs or in easy- 
chairs ornamented by small squares made of guipure, the con- 
ventional decoration of German interiors. A lamp illuminates 
the whole room, as also the persons present. Do not forget that 
it is half past seven o'clock in the evening, the hour at which 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



05 



civilized people dine. At first sight, the room in which you find 
yourself seems to you to be the ugliest you have ever seen in 
your life. The ceiling is painted in a chocolate color, ornamented 
with birds or red and green landscapes; the walls are equally 
covered with a horrible green velvet paper, the vulgarity of 
T*hich is only made more prominent by some paintings and 
photographs hung here and there. 

An enormous clay furnace fills an entire corner of this room, 
the other one of which is occupied by the piano. An immense 
sofa, the table which we have already mentioned, and the 
chairs sy metrically ranged along the wall, complete the furnish- 
ing of this so-called parlor, 

On the sofa a lady of a certain age is majestically seated; she 
is listening to the compliments of an infantry officer, who has 
the air of heroically fulfilling a painful duty ; two or three more 
women are seated a son a throne in the easy- chairs. 

One of them is the mistress of the house, who takes posses- 
sion of you and presents you to the sovereign on the sofa, say- 
ing in a sepulchral voice, on account of being penetrated by the 
grandeur of the title she is about to pronounce: " Her Excel- 
lency, Mrs. General de X ." She does not let you begin a 

conversation with this star, but continues to name to you: 
" Mrs. Privy Councillor, Mrs. Colonel," and finally introduces her 
daughter to you, adding, Das ist mein Lischen (that is my little 
Lisa). After that you are at liberty, and you affrightedly ask 
yourself what will become of you during the two mortal hours 
you are to spend in this cage. 

All these ladies have some knitting in their hands and ap- 
pear absorbed in a conversation where the price of meat and eggs 
plays the principal part. They seem to be on a footing of strict 
ceremony, one toward the other, and address each other by all 
their titles, not forgetting in any of their phrases that of " ex- 
cellency,'' or " very gracious lady." In despair, your eyes rest 
on the table; you will discover that it is heaped up with books, 
pamphlets and papers. A sort of light commences to break in 
on your mind; soon the mistress of the house proposes that you 
should go and take a smoke with these gentlemen, you accept, 
and on entering another room you suddenly find yourself trans- 
ported into another world. 

All the men in whose society you find yourself are well edu- 
cated, polished, well reared, although ignorant of the petty 
usages of fine society, men of occupation, all having their regu- 
lar proper work, and capable of fairly judging the literary and 
scientific events of their , time. They have not the polish, the 
superficial varnish of the fashionable society which assembles 
in the palace Unter den Linden, and which forms the finest or- 
nament of the Thursday receptions of the empress; they do not 
know how to tie their cravat, and the cut of their frock-coats 
dates from the last years of the French Empire, but they are ig- 
norant of the petty gossip which circulates among those who 
surround the emperor. They are simple-minded and their man- 
ners are bashful, but their intellectual faculties are well de- 
veloped and well balanced; it. is a pleasure to talk with them 



US 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



and one always profits by it. Observe that I use the words " in- 
tellectual faculties," for, as far as politics are concerned, they 
are as incapable of judging them and as indifferent about them 
as persons in high life. 

To return to our evening, the time passes, the minutes fly, while 
from being surprised you become interested. The door opens, 
the little servant announces supper. The master of the house 
offers his arm to her excellency, the colonel's wife is assigned to 
you, and all pass into the dining-room. The embarrassment of 
the first moments has disappeared. You feel at ease and forget, 
by degrees, the little ridiculous things in your neighbors. 

The repast is most simple; a saddle of venison, salad and fruit, 
fresh or preserved, according to the season, form the bill of fare. 

The guests eat with their knives, put their fingers in the salt- 
cellar, suck their forks, and wipe their mouths with the back of 
their hand, but you pardon these improprieties through grati- 
tude for the agreeable hours they enabled you to spend. 

When the meal is over, they return to the parlor. The young 
girl who has been introduced to you by the name of Lischen sits 
down at the piano, and the evening finishes asgayly as its begin- 
ning seemed lugubrious. At half past ten everybody gets ready 
to leave; the gas is already turned off in the hall and the servant 
lights you with a candle. Good-night is said, promises are made 
to see each other again, and her excellency, the wives of the 
privy councillor and of the colonel return home on foot the same 
as the lieutenant who had solicitously hovered around their 
greatness, and who rejoices at having saved the money which so 
good a supper w T ould have cost him. 

As a rule, German society, so corrupted above, so demoralized 
below, cannot be better appreciated than by a study of the mid- 
dle classes. There, however, just as among the aristocracy, the 
inferiority of woman, or, to speak more exactly, the way in 
which she is relegated to the duties of the household and to the 
care to be given to her dress, strikes one at first sight. In real- 
ity the wide gulf which separates the woman of the middle 
classes from the fashionable lady lies in her morals. Where the 
wife of a small bondholder, of an official or even of an officer 
will sacrifice herself for her family, her husband or her children, 
reduce herself to the strictest necessity, make herself an unpaid 
servant, bury her youth and beauty in order to save up the cost 
of her sons' education, the spouse of a count or baron, sometimes 
even poorer than the other, will seek for the means of shining in 
society, and of eclipsing her rivals. 

Frequent, then, if you can, these middle-class homes; you will 
witness there the spectacle of the mother of a family, worthy of 
all respect in spite of her meanness and ridiculous ways and you 
will be able, if you can conquer that spirit of raillery which 
pushes young men to laugh at those whose customs and 
tastes are not in harmony with their own — you will be able, I 
say, to penetrate the secrets of the life of the educated, hard- 
working German, sincerely convinced of the greatness of those 
who govern him, perceiving no beauty in material things, unable 
to divine the pleasure of being surrounded by objects to the eye 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



67 



or the senses, insensible to the beauty of a. painting or a statue? 
indifferent to comfort, but capable of weeping at the reading of 
a fine piece of poetry, capable of experiencing infinite joys at 
seeing a plant bloom and flourish, and longing, as a relaxation 
after a clay's toil, to read the pages of a treatise of Darwin, or 
glance over the last volume of Kanke. It is only the middle- 
class German who reads. If you enter a public library, you will 
never find there any one belonging to a more elevated rank in 
society; the same contrast exists between the officers of the crack 
regiments of the guards, and of the infantry and artillery. The 
first are w of ully ignorant and self-complacent to the highest 
degree; they pass their days at the club or in promenading the 
streets, their nights in dancing; they are almost more effeminate 
than women, t and, in most cases, vainer. The latter, on the con- 
trary, are studious, modest, educated, but appreciated, alas, by 
persons for whom social pleasures are sealed letters. 

This explains why men occupying any post whatever* or think 
ing something of themselves keep away from the society which 
you, as a young diplomat, will be obliged to frequent. In no place 
more than in Germany and more than in Berlin does a greater 
difference exist between the classes which constitute the nation. 
Everywhere else a man of talent can issue from the crowd, over- 
turn prejudice, and by the sole force of his genius make himself 
the equal of all. In Berlin he may render himself useful, even 
indispensable, he will never attain to being accepted as an equal 
by those who in default of brains, have ancestors, which is not ex- 
actly the same thing. As a result of this barrier raised by pride 
the men who would be the most competent to successfully ac- 
complish the work of consolidating the G erman Empire, see them- 
selves so repulsed that they do not even attempt to remove the 
barriers which separate them from a circle of society inferior in 
everything but inaccessible. 

It is at the entrance to this circle of society, like at the entrance 
to the Infernal Regions, one must leave hope behind. 



TWENTY-FIRST LETTER. 

ARTISTS AND SCIENTISTS. 

There are a great number of artists and scientists in Berlin, 
but they form among themselves a kind of coterie to which it is 
very difrlcult to get access. Generally they are not seen in 
society except at the crown princess' or the Countess de Schlei- 
nitz's. Princes^ Victoria, enthusiastic on all questions per- 
taining to art and literature, makes it her duty to protect and 
encourage the artists and scientists. A great deal of gratitude 
is due her for her protection. It is positive that since the mar- 
riage of the crown prince, things referring to the artistic world 
have made a great progress. The princess visits the expositions, 
criticises and judges them, interested herself in the treasures ac- 
quired by the museums. Some persons, very few indeed, imitate 
her example. The movement is still quite restricted, but it is 
nevertheless a step in the right direction. 

Unhappily society through its ignorance is incapable of direct- 



08 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



ing artistic taste. The burghers have not sufficient authority 
with the artists; they allow themselves to be swayed by them, 
and in place of exposing their faults and mistakes in taste, accept 
blindly and enthusiastically accept the judgments they pass on 
themselves. The result of this state of affairs is that the artists, 
being free to choose, have founded a kind of national school, 
pointing to the traditions of the Renaissance, which up to the 
present has produced nothing but monstrosities. Nothing equals 
the fatuity of a German sculptor or painter, except perhaps that 
of an officer of the gardes du corps. They think they have con- 
quered the domain of art just as the German armies have con- 
quered provinces. Obstinately sticking to their own ideas, they 
wish to force the whole world to adopt them. 

Not having relations with an enlightened public, they can give 
full sway to their extravagances, and little by little will entirely 
corrupt the taste of their compatriots. What they condemn is 
the pleasure derived from looking at a pretty object, even if the 
form is not correct, and they talk against anything which only 
pleases the eye. According to them everything should have a 
certain style, the old German siyle, which is nothing more than 
a horrible caricature of the Renaissance. This is why their houses 
are all somber, black, horribly furnished with chairs and closets 
in sculptured wood, their ceilings decorated with paintings of 
the new school, representing women in extravagant positions 
with faded bouquets in their hands. But I am digressing into 
an article on German taste instead of speaking to you about the 
artists. I will return to my subject and describe Professor 
Angeli to you. The professor is a native of Vienna, and has 
nothing to do here, but he is so often in Berlin, he is so much 
patronized by the aristocracy of this city, that one can almost 
count him as one of the inhabitants. His great reputation dates 
from the time he painted the portraits of the crown prince and 
the crown princess, who have bought his best works. Since that 
success, Professor Angeli has been the Benjamin of all the 
drawing-rooms, and like Benjamin, he has abused his position. 
He is the most egotistical person in the world. His pride is 
phenomenal. He thinks the whole world has been created for 
him alone. He is responsible for his acts, for it seems that in 
the company of people who are not disposed to tolerate his van- 
ity he can be very modest. Unhappily this does not occur often, 
and the fashionable ladies of Berlin quietly submit to Professor 
Angeli's caprices, which would not be tolerated an instant in the 
house of an attache, or a secretary of legation. 

Professor Werner, whose paintings of the Congress of Berlin 
and the Proclamation of the Empire at Versailles were so much 
admired, is a lean little man with a shrewd face, which is not, 
however, aggressive. This does not imply, however, that he has 
a poor opinion of himself, but he is not as vain as the most of his 
colleagues, more especially the painter Lenbach, whose two or 
three successes have completely turned his bead. Count Ferdi- 
nand Harrach is a gentleman painter, an amateur artist work- 
ing for love of his art, which does not prevent him from charg- 
ing very high prices for detestable pictures. Less handsome 



BERLIN SOCIETY* 



69 



than Mars, he has made some conquests, notably that of his 
pretty wife. A man of ability, he is, nevertheless, so imbued 
with his own superiority that he doesn't credit any of his neigh- 
bors with having common sense. He is very amiable, but one 
divines in his cynical smile how little esteem he has for those 
whom he disdains to recognize. He is one of the most ardent 
apostles of the old German style. The crown princess is evi- 
dently of the opinion that it is better to be deceived in art matters, 
rather than not cultivate them at all, and it seems to her that 
Count Ferdinand Harrach is, at least, a good example. She 
honors him with her most distinguished consideration, and has 
even deigned to select him as her cavalier at her masked balL 

The most remarkable in respect to intelligence among the 
artists whom you will have the pleasure of meeting is, without 
dispute, Professor Gustave Richter, the best portrait painter 
Germany possesses to-day. He is neither vain nor ostentatious, 
He knows what he wants, but has not the pretension to imagine 
that he surpasses the rest of the world by reason of his talent 
and genius. He is the only German artist who can be counted 
in the category of great men. He married Meyerbeer's daughter, 
and both husband and wife are worthy of our friendship and 
esteem. fh 

I shall not speak to you of the other painters and sculptors of 
Berlin. It is sufficient for me to have pointed out the most im- 
portant ones to you, among whom I had almost forgotten to 
enumerate the sculptor Begas, a man of great talent, whose 
wife is celebrated for her beauty. The fetes given by the artistic 
world of Berlin are amusing for any one desirous of being edified 
by human vanity, for nothing can compare with the disdain 
with which the German artists speak about those who do not 
share their ideas and their tastes. 

As for their literary and scientific men, there are few remark- 
able ones in Berlin, "Without speaking of Mommsen, Ranke, 
and Helmholtz, nearly all the professors of the University are 
men of the highest value and ability, working for the purpose 
of working, to advance science or clear up some historical points 
which are still obscure, and not to trumpet their own personal 
ideas or theories. These courageous pioneers of progress merit 
our highest respect and most sincere admiration, for they are 
the only ones in the whole country who are not blinded by false 
ideas of national glory, who admit the worth of all the nations 
of the earth, and who, beyond the new German Empire, her arm- 
ies, her victories, her sovereign, and her all-powerful chan- 
cellor, discern a greater thing, nobler still for them, more sub- 
lime, for it is the only thing on this earth created in the image 
of the Maker— < humanity." 



TWENTY-SECOND LETTER. 

THE PRESS* 

Germany is one of the countries where the press occupies a 
position out of all proportion to the power it wields. Among the 
quantity of daily papers which flood the streets of Berlin, there 



70 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



are only two or three which really have any power with the masses 
and they are of a very inferior type, such as the Klein Journal, 
a poor imitation of the Daily News, and the Berliner Tageblatt, 
which must not be confounded with the Deutsches Tageblati. 
These two journals are the organs of German humbug and Jew- 
ish arrogance. They are read by servant girls and high society, 
who find alike in them sufficient to satisfy their love for sensa- 
tional news. It often happens that these papers are obliged to 
contradict their own assertions, but the public rarely reads the 
dement and carry about from place to place the malicious lies. 
As for the big sheets they are read mainly in other countries, 
where people fondly imagine that they represent the opinion for 
which they fight. It is not so, however, in the two or three 
journals of the type of the Germania, the organ of the clericals, 
and the Kreuz Zeitung the organ of the conservatives. 

The entire German press is either in the hands of the Jewish 
bankers or dependent on the government, which by turns in- 
spires the Post, the Norddeutsche and the National Zeitung, 
sometimes even the Kohnische Zeitung, just as either one or the 
other of these papers appear favorable to its interests, or accord- 
ing to which one of them would allow itself to be most easily 
contradicted. In regard to questions which concern the press, 
as in everything else, Prince Bismarck has his plan. Whenever he 
desires to know what effect a certain piece of news would cause 
in the world, he has it immediately printed, taking great care 
that it should be written in the manner of the organ chosen by 
him. After all Europe has become alarmed and discussed it 
thoroughly and the chancellor's object has been gratified, he has 
the news denied by an official note in the Norddeutsche. And 
the good critical soul pours hot shot into those who had the 
perversity to declare that an independent journal had any 
relations with the government. 

The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung is the only sheet which 
is continually in the pay of the ministry of foreign affairs. 
When the ambassador of a foreign power comes to the Wilhelm 
Strasse to complain of a particularly venomous article against 
his country, a thousand excuses are made to him, ignorance of 
any knowledge that the article had crept into the paper is 
alleged, and in the morning without contradicting the affirma- 
tions of the day before, the Norddeutsche publishes a paragraph 
for the purpose of appeasing the wrath raised against her. This 
paper gives the tone to ail the others and rarely takes back its 
assertions. 

The editors are only there as a matter of form. All the of 
ficial articles are manufactured in the ministry of foreign af- 
fairs and submitted to the decision of the chancellor. 

Whenever Bismarck has need of having an opinion made 
known in a certain quarter, which would not be out of place in the 
Norddeutsche, and which would not carry sufficient weight in 
the other papers, he chooses the Post, a so-called conscientious, 
so-called conservative, a so-called independant paper, of whose 
integrity a great many people are convinced. The aid of the 
Post is called into requisition whenever the chancellor wishes 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



11 



to win over the pious grand seigneurs, subscribers to the Kreuz 
Zeitung and that crowd of scarecrows who have always before 
their eyes the night-mare of social revolution. The assertions of 
the Post are selclomer contradicted than those of other papers; it 
is the olive branch which will reconcile, should it ever become 
necessary, the government with the adherents of the clerical 
party. 

As to the National Zeitung, the organ of Lasker and the Na- 
tional Liberals, it formerly vigorously supported the govern- 
ment in its fight against the Catholics. Since the party it repre- 
sents has quarreled with the chancellor, the National Zeitung 
has also broken off from him, but this paper has still certain 
attachments to its former alley, when it is required to 
to fight the common enemy, clericalisim. The chancellor takes 
advantage of this, whenever he wishes to conciliate the enemies 
of Herr von Windthorst's party. This newspaper, regarded as 
dangerous in high places, can be contradicted without fear, if a 
new maneuver of Bismarck's renders it necessary. 

As to the Konisclie Zeitung, it is the advance-guard of the 
chancellor. Its duty is to keep watch on foreign powers, unravel 
their ambitious secrets and reveal their dissensions, their finan- 
cial embarrassments and the fictitious power of their armies. It 
is she, also, whose mission it is to keep German patriotism alive, 
to re-awaken the national pride and to give the final signal to 
the trumpet that sounds the hour of battle. 

Published outside of Berlin and regarded as the best informed 
paper in Germany, as well as one of the richest, keeping every- 
where correspoD dents more or less fantastic, the Konisclie Zeit- 
ung is reputed in foreign countries to be an independent paper, 
although its opinions are prejudiced and its hates extremely 
violent. Very few people know that its inspirations are received 
direct from Bismarck's office; the latter taking advantage of the 
high position occupied by the paper to excite the bad instinct of 
the Nationalists, irritate the foreign press, provoke its rage and 
then heap reproaches upon it. 

This shows that Prince Bismarck has everywhere and always 
several strings to his bow and plays with the press as with every- 
thing else. In the same way he go veins the foreign correspond- 
ents who say, think, and do only what pleases the chancellor. 
Those who are corrupt, obey; those who are independent are 
circumspect; those who are hostile are deceived. 

Bismarck knows in this way how to influence foreign corres- 
pondents by a sort of famine, which chases them far away from 
the truth, like wolves from the forest. When they have nothing 
to write, they manufacture, like Eussian jouralists, fictitious 
news, or else like the Times, they are reduced to the necessity of 
describing Lord Ampthill's balls and dinners. 

Among all the journals only two are really free from all 
solidarity with the government and free to do as they please- 
viz., the Kreuz Zeitung and the Germania. The first named is 
patronized by the fashionable world, who find therein detailed 
descriptions of all the court balls, births, marriages, and deaths. 
The mev$ fact of being a subscriber to the &nv*% Zeitung m a 



1% BERLIN SOCIETY. 

testimonial of respectability. It is an arch-Protestant and arch* 
tiresome paper. Its saint is Luther, its hero Pastor Kogel, its 
enemies all those to whom the word progress is not abominable. 
One hundred years behind the age, the Kreuz Zeitung has always 
been a favorite of Bismarck. It pushes its scruples so far, in 
regard to the veracity of its news, as not to publish it until it 
♦ has received the consecration of time and passed into the field 
of ancient history* It is perpetually at war with the Ger mania, 
whose Catholicism it detests. This last sheet, more Catholic 
than the pope, it distinguishes itself by the ardor with which it 
deals with polemics, and by the bitterness it displays in every 
kind of discussion. Tact is a virtue it does not possess, and 
Christian charity is totally foreign to its nature. * 4 Religion with- 
out charity " ought to be its motto. 

I will not speak to you of the Fremdenblatt, a paper given over 
entirely to stupid gossip. It shares with the Berliner Tageblatt 
the favor of the officers and ladies of Berlin, who both find 
therein, after a ball, descriptions of the toilets and the names of 
their friends. As a rule, all papers devoted to a recital of the 
gossip and scandal of the day are in great vogue in high society. 
The journalists profit by this in either augmenting their sub- 
scription list by dishing up a new scandal every morning, or 
else by extorting blackmail from dupes, by threatening to com- 
promise them by revealing certain phases of their private life. 

This species of trade caused not long ago a celebrated law-suit 
in which figured an ex-army officer, the wearer of an aristo- 
cratic name and allied to the best families in the country. 
For one who has escaped from Jthis extortion, how many are 
there who submit to their fate without a murmur, and who 
have paid dearly for the silence they deem absolutely indis- 
pensable in their social position. 

The newspaper which is most read in Berlin among this class 
is the Boer sen Courier, the organ of the green-room and the 
stock exchange. The editors of this paper are at present in 
prison. One reads therein sometimes true and sometimes ficti- 
tious stories. On all questions except money, the opinions of 
this paper are of no account. 



TWENTY-THIRD LETTER. 

THE CHANCELLOR'S DUPES. 
I must not forget to speak to you about a certain class of indi- 
viduals, with some specimens of which you will have occasion to 
come into contact, and whom I cannot qualify, except with the 
name of the chancellor's ravens, in memory of our friend La 
Fontaine. They are persons, more or less intelligent, always 
supple and adroit, often insinuating, whose manners and educa- 
tion leave nothing to be desired, and who, devoured by a frenzied 
ambition, have made themselves Herr von Bismarck's slaves, 
whom they often serve, without suspecting it, as — how shall I 
say? spies would be too strong a term, informers too weak; let 
us say, they are persons who, through devotion to themselves, 
have undertaken the task of dissipating the cause pf their pow- 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



53 



erful protector's sleepless nights, by relating to him the events of 
the day, the doings and actions of different persons suspected, in 
high places, of having political opinions. 

Having no taste for fairy-tales, like the sultan in the Arabian 
Nights, the chancellor likes to be amused by anecdotes. He likes 
still more to possess some souls secretly damned; his scent of a 
thoroughbred dog soon discovers them to him, and he at once 
hastens to attract them by persuading them that they have wit, 
talent, in fine, every sort of quality; and, what is more impor- 
tant, to give them the assurance that they enjqy his (the chan- 
cellor's) entire confidence. In a word, Herr von Bismarck be- 
comes a fox in order to betray some little ravens, to whom he 
gives cheese instead of taking it away. 

It is rare that this cheese is of the first quality, but a slice of 
humble Swiss cheese, eaten in company with the prince, is often 
preferable to a cut of Chester devoured in solitude. On this 
principle, many persons make desperate efforts to obtain a piece 
of the former, but alas! this piece resembles the fatal fruit of the 
tree of knowledge. It makes you giddy. Once having tasted it, 
you no longer belong to yourself; you become ambitious, cruel, 
cowardly; you sacrifice everything — honor, sentiments — to the 
desire of being in greater favor, to the pride of being praised by 
the master who owns you. 

The compacts formed between Herr von Bismarck and his 
auxiliaries, whom he secretly uses, are never anything else than 
understandings; frequently, even, the persons who have signed 
them are ignorant of the terms of the contract which binds 
them. They only know that the chancellor finds them worth 
something, invites them to Varzin, becomes intimate with them, 
makes them talk, shows an interest in their views: that, in fine, 
for one reason or another, their career takes an extraordinary 
bound, develops in a manner peculiarly favorable to their inter- 
ests. They are ignorant, these worthy people, or feign ignorance, 
of what good fairy it is to whose influence they owe their rapid 
promotion, but at each new proof of the favors which providence 
bestows on them, they pay a visit to the chancellor, who re- 
ceives them cordially, congratulates them, and repeats to them: 
" I am happy that a man of your talents is at last appreciated." 

Among the individuals thus appreciated, two or three are in 
the department of foreign affairs, others, soldiers or civilians, 
move about in society where they are splendidly received, and 
where few suspect the role they play. 

You, yourself, however much on your guard you may be, will 
find it difficult to distinguish them, and most of the time you 
will fall into the snare which their always exquisite affability 
and their politeness, so superior to that of Germans in general, 
will stretch for you. 

The presence of these animated telephones, constitutes, none 
the less, a serious peril to life at Berlin, for the slightest sincere 
word let drop among bosom friends may be repeated to him 
who is criticised and may assume, from the very fact of its 
being repeated, an importance not intended to be attached to it. 
Therefore don't talk politics while you are iii Berlin, or, if you 



74 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



do so, praise, praise all and everything, even and especially 
what you disapprove. 

Try to avoid every risky expression, confine yourself to the 
most ordinary commonplaces; remember, that not only walls, 
but even the air has ears; and that, in these progressive times, 
one can with the aid of a telephone hear at Potsdam what is 
said in Berlin. I will not mention the names of the persons 
who it seems to me, ought to belong to the class I have just de- 
scribed. What good would it do to unmask their incognito? 
What good, especially, to deprive them of their illusions; to tell 
them that they* owe the chancellor's protection not to their 
merit, but to their utility, and that a time will come when, their 
usefulness being no longer necessary, they will sink back into the 
obscurity from which a less shrewd mind than Herr von Bis- 
marck's would never have sought to draw them ? 

Only \L repeat again and always, Beware, beware, be even more 
on your guard with the young men who speak all languages flu- 
ently, who have traveled much, and possess a certain number of 
foreign decorations, polite with the diplomats (this is a grave 
sign), always around women, welcome at court, sought after in 
society and seldom going to the department of foreign affairs. 
Besides these secret gentleman, the chancellor has other proteges, 
openly confessed ones, and entirely avowable. Such, for example, 
is Herr Lindau, a brother of Paul Lindau, the writer, whom you 
must have already met. He is strong-minded, having all the dis- 
tinctive qualities of the Jewish race: energy, tact, shrewdness, 
clear and level judgment, extraordinary facility in handling the 
pen, and ambitious to rise by his own merits. Very cordially 
received by the imperial princess, Herr Rudolph Lindau merits 
the favor which the heiress of the throne accords him. He is 
one of the best attaches of the department of foreign affairs, 
he has so far succeeded in avoiding the disfavor of the deus ex 
machina of his department. One rarely sees him in society, 
where he is received with a certain disdain on account of his 
Hebrew origin. 

A charming conversationalist, you will, however, find him 
much more reserved at home than abroad; for at Berlin every- 
body fears a false interpretation of his thought. I doubt, for 
this very reason, whether he will encourage you to visit him 
often; he would, however, be a useful and profitable acquaint- 
ance for you. Do not reckon, however, that he may furnish 
you with any information; he is very niggardly on this point. 

I greatly regret, for your sake, Herr von Radowitz's absence 
from Berlin; he is one of the most curious types I know. Skill- 
ed, adroit, supple and intelligent, able to adapt himself to all sit- 
uations, to tell a falsehood, when necessary, with the most im- 
perturbable coolness, to opportunely flatter, at times to contra- 
dict, to praise when expedient, he has, with all these merits, 
one fault — an impetuous character, sometimes dangerous for a 
diplomat, for it may draw him away from his aim, and, in any 
case, it gives rise to apprehensions in him who employs him 
that he will not execute to the letter, and, in the same spirit, the 
instructions he receives. He is, moreover, vain, and cannot re- 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



75 



strain his self-love, too accessible to flattery. He easily surren- 
ders his secret to those who know how to praise him in order to 
become its depository. Greatly impassioned in his enthusiasm 
for the chancellor, he occasionally is lacking in tact, and forgets 
that if Germany has the light to be proud, her representatives 
have the duty not to be insolent. Such as he is, however, Herr 
von Eadowitz may be regarded, if not one of the best, at least 
one of the most adroit and amiable diplomatic agents which 
Germany has. 

His colleagues openly reproach him with blundering; but in 
certain cases this may be a merit, and Herr von Bismarck in his 
changeable and abrupt policy may be often happy in having a 
representative whom he can disavow. 

Often, when seeking or desiring a war, people able to provoke 
it, like Herr von Radowitz, become precious auxiliaries. At 
present he is in Constantinople to replace Count Paul von Hatz- 
f eld there, and probably also to annoy Russia and to irritate the 
nerves of its charge d'affaires, M. de Nelidoff, who is said to be 
very sensitive. 

I do not know how Herr von Radowitz stands his trips to the 
banks of the Bosphorus; but of this I am sure, he finds himself in 
his element in the midst of the intrigues of every kind in which 
Oriental politics move, and against which the unfortunate 
Commander of the Faithful strives. 

To embroil the people among themselves, then to reconcile 
them, to have his hands kissed by both friend and foe, that is 
a work which in all its aspects suits the son of the Radowitz, 
the friend of the mystical Frederick William IV., whom 
Saint Rene Taillandier has so well painted in his fine book, " Ten 
Years of the German Empire." 

I will only mention, in passing, among Prince Bismarck's 
proteges, Herr Busch, the author of the famous work on the 
chancellor which created so great a sensation two or three years 
ago. He is a friend whom one disavows, who has been allowed 
to have bis own way, because, as it is said, he could not be pre- 
vented, and who is censured and blamed for the impropriety of 
his revelations. 

He must know the chancellor very poorly, and take the power 
over which he disposes very little into consideration, who admits 
for a single instant that Herr Busch would have dared to publish 
his book without having previously submitted the whole text to 
Herr von Bismarck and received from him the right to print 
it. The prince rather likes this sort of indiscretion, which al- 
lows him to make known, indirectly, to the public the private 
sides of his character, as also certain opinions which he cannot 
otherwise express than in private. The publication of the work 
Fuerst Bismarck und seine Leute has been a sort of recompense 
accorded by the chancellor to a man who had been useful to him, 
and to whom he granted in the guise of salary the right to depict 
his ordinary every-day life. Herr von Bismarck knows too well 
the people governed by Caesarism not to know that they must 
be amused either in giving them, under some form, bread and cir- 



76 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



cuses, or in handing over to their eager curiosity the spectacle of 
the private life of a great man. 

In short, to understand Germany well and to observe it with 
profit, one must study it, comprehend it, judge it at the present 
time where it appears to have assimilated its conquests and where 
a near future will direct it in new pathways. 

One asks oneself to-day, what will become of it when the old 
emperor, his all-powerful minister, the Moltkes and Manteuff els, 
the men of another age living in our century, shall have disap- 
peared. When in their place there shall be a king who has been 
able, without contributing to it, to experience what an absolute 
military government is, but to whom the situation, his works, 
his recreations, his travels, and even his wife's nationality, have 
given an entirely different character, and, perhaps, the desire to 
govern Germany in a liberal sense. What difficulties would he 
find in the traditions of a system which has made imperial Ger- 
many? What resistance would he find in an army organized 
for conquest ? In a middle class not yet ready to assume power ? 
In a demoralized and, in some cases, disorganized press ? What 
aid could be rendered him by ambitious persons incapable of 
assuming any responsibilities with which they have become 
unfamiliar? Added to all these unfavorable elements is social- 
ism, which has been nourished and strengthened by Bismarck, 
who himself is unable to cope with it and which threatens to rise 
daily. Then one can predict that the position of the emperor's 
successor will be a difficult, and, perhaps, inextricable one. Can 
he find in the army itself that sacrificial spirit which would 
allow him to reduce it ? Would he find in the public officials, 
torn away from submission, the necessary ability to carry 
out great reforms ? Would the same generation which has seen 
brute force triumph everywhere be inspired with the necessary 
ardor to hold itself open to moral force and justice ? 

It would require, to lead a nation so little prepared for it into 
such paths, a prince with an energetic spirit, of lofty aspira- 
tions, with a firm hand, unmindful of premature popularity, but 
knowing that history would give in its tablets, beside the place 
of a conqueror, an equal place to a great legislator. 

[the end.] 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



THE BANK SECRET. 



A SHOET STOEY. 



CHAPTER I. 

There had been a full half -minute of elegant silence at the 
tea-table of old John Belf ord, the banker. 

"Gideon!" The old-fashioned name seemed set to a sort of 
conversational music by the rich, full tones which uttered it, 
and it was followed, in default of any instant reply, by "I'm 
going to do you a very great favor." 

4 • Eight away ? Well, I'm ready*, all my firmness rallied." 

" No, sir; you may finish your tea." 

" And then the astonishment?" 

" You can have that now. I've tickets for the concert at the 
Academy to-morrow night, and you're to take me." 
" Euth, my dear!" 

Mrs. Bel ford, from behind the tea-urn, said that quite sudden- 
ly, and Gideon showed his presence of mind by promptly re- 
marking: 

" Mrs. Belf ord, I'm deeply obliged to f^ou. Those are the very 
words, only I should not have dared " 

The lady of the house was not at that moment smiling upon 
her husband's big, yellow-haired step-son. She even in a man- 
ner cut him off by repeating, in a tone cf reproof: 

" Euth, my dear!" and then, after a dignified pause, she add- 
ed: " Did not Mr. Marvin Belf ord speak to you about this very 
concert ?" 

"Did he?" growled old John Belf ord from |the other end of 
the table. "Then Euth's right, Self-preservation is the first 
law of nature." 

" Euth," said Gideon, " I'm your man, I'll save you at any 
cost." 

"It will cost you nothing at all, sir, and the music will be 
good. Besides, I shall wear a new dress, and be unusually 
handsome. You will be a much-envied man." 

" And Marvin will love me better than ever, and I shall be 
happy," he responded. 

Gideon Street did not look a man to be much troubled by the 
opinions of other people, particularly of anybody he was just 
thinking of. Neither did he bear the customary marks of a gen- 
eral favorite among men or women. 

It is not easy to make a pet of a broad-shouldered, bearded 
Viking, with steel-grey eyes and a deep voice. 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



Through all the explanatory remarks which followed he was 
profoundly polite to Mrs. Belford, and a little more so to Ruth, 
but there was all the while a species of suppressed chuckle in 
ambush behind the politeness. 

4 4 Ruth Faraday," exclaimed Mrs. Belford, at last, "you are 
much too severe upon your cousin. Marvin Belford is one of 
Nature's noblemen. " 

44 He's not a cousin of mine, Aunt Carrie, and I must say I 
think Nature might have done better." 

44 And not half try," muttered Gideon Street. 

But at that moment Mr. Belford said to his wife: 

44 Now, Carrie, you must let us go. I want a talk with Gid in 
the library about some business matters. You can have him, 
Ruth, after I've done with him." 

44 1 don't want him, Uncle John. HI be perfectly fair. He 
need not come near me again until it's time to start for the con- 
cert." 

44 That's fair," said Gideon. 

44 And even then I won't expect him to talk. All he really 
need do is to look round him and smile now and then, after I've 
led him to the right seats." 

Her dark brilliant eyes were dancing with fun, and Gideon, as 
he slowly rose from the table, thrust his face half-way across it 
with a remarkable contortion of its manly features as he asked: 

44 Would this do?" 

44 Not if there were children." 

44 Well, you must put me in mind you know. I can smile." 

An hour or so later, without any smile at all upon his face, 
Gideon Street came out of John Bedford's library. He carried 
in one hand a leathern valise of respectable size, and on his hasty 
march toward the front door he muttered; 

44 Good! company in the parlor. Shan't have to answer any 
questions." 

Behind him, in the well-lighted, luxurious library, the stal- 
wart, grim old banker sat by the table in the center, very much 
as if he were listening for the sound of the closing of the front 
door. It came — a sharp, decisive sound — and his heavy fist fell 
upon the table with a thud. 

44 That's attended to. I believe I can trust him. There'll be 
music all round before a great while, but I don't believe I shall 
hear much of it. The rest of them will all have tickets." 

There was mention making of tickets and music at that very 
moment in the parlor, for, although Mr. Marvin Belford had been 
there some time, he had been but a few minutes in the enjoy- 
ment of Ruth Faraday's conversation. 

He was not so tall or so strong a man as Gideon Street, but he 
was much better looking, his eyes and hair were darker, and he 
was dressed with more care. 

His response to Ruth's entering salutation had been made with 
a grace which did him credit, but they two, had they been 
listening, might have heard the street door open and shut just 
as the young lady innocently remarked: 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



79 



"The concert? Splendid? ^es, it will be, no doubt. Mr. 
Street has promised to take me." 

" Con h'm! You're booked already! Too late, am I? 

Now, Ruth, you might have known I'd come. Gid Street, too!" 

" Well, yes, I did think you possibly might, but I could not 
run any risk. I'm of age now, these three days, and it's made 
me ever so much wiser than I used to be." 

"Nothing could make you more beautiful, Ruth*" 

4 1 Now, Mr. Belford, you must call me Miss Farraday. I am 
quite taken with my new dignity, and I mean to claim all its 
advantages." 

" What! With me, Ruth ?" 

"Certainly. Why not?" 

"I've known you from childhood. You used to call me 
cousin, and Marvin, and " 

There was a touch of earnestness in his voice and manner, 
enough to suggest something more than a whim in Ruth's fore- 
thought concerning the concert. 

Her interruption was badly matter-of-fact. 

"Oh, yes, Mr. Belford, that's all very true; but I insist upon 
being a |£rown-up young lady now. Call me Miss Farraday, and 
tell me whom you'll take to the concert, now I'm out of the 
question." 

"Nobodv on earth." 

"Now, Mr. Belford! You're not acquainted anywhere else? 
Why can't you be good and unselfish, just for once, and go for 
some homely girl ?" 

" 1 declare I will! I'll get the ugliest, worst dressed, most ill- 
tempered, cross-eyed " 

"Poor, too; don't forget that." 

The rest of that conversation was not worth reporting on be- 
half of Marvin Belford. 

It was a relief to him, at last, when Mrs. John Belford came 
into the parlor, called him her " dear nephew," and gave him the 
stately kiss of an admiring aunt. 

It is quite possible she might have been doing better service in 
the library at that moment in the part of a devoted wife. 

There sat the banker yet, by fche table, his gray head bowed 
upon his fat, wrinkled hands, and the voice which came through 
them almost sepulchral: 

"I can't quite make up my mind to it, but I know it's com- 
ing. It has waited a long time, but it will not wait much long- 
er now. Glad I can trust Gid. It's a strange thing to think of, 
after all these years. Coming, coming. I cannot make up my 
mind to it. She is a good girl, and I've loved her ever since she 
was born." 



CHAPTER II. 

There were five persons whose rank or duty gave them access 
to the ample vault of Belford Brothers, the well-known and 
h ighly-respected banking-house. 

Of these, the first two, the heads of the house, John and his 



80 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



brother William, rarely looked into it. Those who did so more 
frequently were the junior partner, Mr. Marvin Belford; the 
spectacled bookkeeper, Mr. Ruggles; and Mr. Gideon Street, in 
his confidential capacity of teller. 

The minor dignitaries of the ancient house could all say, indeed, 
that they had often looked in upon the somber security of that 
iron-bound cell, they had even awe-struck memories of having 
put their feet inside it; but not one of them had been intrusted 
with the magic numbers of the combination which controlled 
the opening of the massive lock. 

But on the day after the events just narrated, there were five 
consecutive visitors to the vault, and each in turn found some 
attraction for his eyes in a large, oblong package, tied with cross- 
belts of red tape, which lay a little by itself on one of the lower 
shelves. 

The ancient bookkeeper did not touch the package, but he bent 
his white head over it as he said: 

" Miss Faraday's bonds ? Well, they've a special deposit, but I 
wish they were somewhere else. It won't do for me to meddle; 
but her uncle ought to look out for that. I forgot; Mr. John 
Belford does not know exactly." 

He shut his lips tightly and went out, and his place was shortly 
taken by the portly form of Mr. William Belford, more grimly 
and stately than his brother John, and more a walking assur- 
ance of financial solvency. 

He glanced around the vault to see that all was right, and his 
cold eyes rested on the package: 

" Ruth's fortune, eh ? We must look out for that, for Marvin's 
sake. I must tell John to put it somewhere else. He doesn't 
know the real condition of things, but I can give him a reason 
for it." 

His heavy, stately tread passed out of the vault, and he may 
have been correct as to his brother's ignorance of peril to that 
package, for in less than ten minutes John Belford was regard- 
ing '^Ruth's fortune" with an iron smile, and hoarsely chuckling 
over it. 

" That's safe, at all events. I owed that much to her mother. 
I'm glad nobody can touch it!" 

It was necessary, a little later, for Gideon Street to carry into 
the vault a small japanned tin box, and the smile he turned up- 
on the tane-belted parcel would have answered him admirably 
for skirmish uses at the concert the coming evening. 

" There it is. Ruth is more of an heiress than I thought for. 
The old gentleman's managed well for her. 

The smile faded as he spoke, and its place was taken by a 
crimson flush and then by a singular paleness. 

* ' They're not for you, Gideon, my boy. Any fool can see 
that. Do your duty, but don't let it make a fool of you." 

Excellent words to be uttered in a bank-vault, whether as a 
riddle or an exhortation, and when he had taken one more look 
he returned to his post in the main office. 
^ It was late in the day before Mr. Marvin Belford found any 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



81 



occasion for crossing that iron threshold, and when he did so 
there were no eyes upon him. 

He had a deposit to make, taking it from a traveling-bag 
which he carried in his hand. It was an oblong package, fast- 
ened curiously with red tape, and when he put it down on the 
shelf beside Ruth Faraday's fortune he was entirely justified in 
remarking: 

" No man alive could tell them apart. Even the tape is of the 
same width and the creases in the paper come exactly right. A 
perfect pair of twins." 

He was evidently pleased with the comparison he was mak- 
ing, but at the end of it he picked up one of the " twins " and 
slipped it into the traveling-bag. A change of mind, doubtless, 
and he had decided not to leave his deposit in the vault for he 
carried that bag with him in his cab after banking hours when 
he went home. He seemed in low spirits, too, all the way, and 
it was probably well for him that he had in prospect an evening 
of amusement. 

He went to the concert, truly, but he had failed to comply 
with the charitable suggestion of Ruth Faraday, for she, herself, 
could claim no great advantages over the jeweled belle at the 
side of Marvin Belford. 

" Shall I smile on him, Ruth?" asked Gideon. " I want to." 

" Do, please, your very best. It's just what I've been do- 
ing." 

' 'Yes, I saw; and he tried to smile back. Failed awfully. I'll 
give him a chance to try it again if I can catch his eye. He 
loves me." 

"There! you hit him." 

Ther° are a few things which Ruth either had not yet learned 
or had v forgotten. 

For instance, you may know a man for years and years, and 
you may respect him exceedingly; he may even be your uncle's 
step- son and live a good while in the same house with you, and 
yet you may not become the least bit in the world intimate with 
him, especially if you have it in your mind that you half-way 
dislike him and can't tell why. If, however, you begin to let 
him slip from " old acquaintance" into " old friend," there is no 
telling how far he will slip along that line — or you either. It is 
a very slippery line. 

That night, however, Ruth was in remarkable high spirits, and 
Gideon had something upon his mind which absolutely compelled 
him to smile occasionally. 

Mrs. John Belford had retired before her husband's niece re- 
turned from the concert; but he was still up, and he waylaid 
Ruth as she passed the library door. 

" Come in, my dear," he said, as he slowly returned to his seat 
by the table. 

' ' What is it, Uncle J ohn ?" Her fair face was yet flushed with 
excitement and pleasure as she stepped lightly in, but she 
quickly added, " Are you not well ? Is there anything the mat- 
ter?" 

He was looking in her face earnestly and lovingly, but there 



82 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



was a white, strange shade on his own, as of suppressed and bit- 
ter pain. 

44 Nothing at all, my dear. Listen to me; can you keep a 
secret ?" 

She was serious enough now, as she listened to those deep, 
ominous, all but tremulous tones. 
44 1 can. Try me." 

44 It may not seem a great one just now, but you must keep it. 
You are good friends with Gideon?" 

44 Good enough, Uncle John, especially this evening." 
44 The music was good ?" 

44 A splendid concert. But what about Gideon ?" 
4 4 He is a man to be trusted. In a little while it will be neces- 
sary for you to trust some one. Trust him. Not anybody 

else." 

4 4 Not even you ?" 

4 4 No, not even me. I am an old rascal. He is young and 
honest. No matter what turns up, trust Gideon Street." 
4 \ What can you mean ?" 

44 Go to bed now. Keep your secret. One of these days you 
will know what I mean." 

She tried again, but there was no breath of explanation to be 
obtained from the old gentleman. His face grew hard and his 
voice harsh, but he kept to himself all the remainder of his 
secret. 

The next day things seemed to go on as usual, but if John Bel- 
ford had intended a deep and cunning plot to increase the dis- 
tance in ftuth Faraday's behavior to Gideon, he had planned well 
and with complete succees. Even smiles across the table died 
like flowers in frost. Gideon took it all with external calmness, 
and Euth could not complain of any attempt on his part to 
break the barrier of ice she had so unaccountably raised. 

The days went by for about a fortnight, in a curiously, chilly 
way, considering how fine was the bright October weather, and 
then there came a great sensation to a very wide, social and 
financial 44 circle." 

Gideon Street carried it down to the bank and delivered it to 
Mr. William Belford and his son Marvin on their arrival. A 
telegram earlier sent had missed them. 

44 Apoplexy ? Dead in bed? Marvin, come right in with me. 
This is an awful blow !" 

In half a minute more the two were closeted in the private 
parlor of the bank, leaving Gideon and Mr. Ruggles to spread 
the sensation as customers came in. 

44 Father," asked Marvin, 44 had you any suspicion of such a 
danger ?" 

44 Knew he'd been in fear of it this long time. He was under 
medical treatment. Well, he's gone! Marvin, this will precipi- 
tate matters. This will be a rough day, but you can keep all 
steady while I drive to John's house and back. I'll see Carrie 
and give some directions, and then we must prepare " 

44 For a storm ? No, I don't see how it can come to-day." 

" It will come. I've been fighting it of! these ten years." 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



83 



" Nobody knows there's any deficit more than they did vester- 
day." 

" You're not as old as I am. I can feel it in my bones." 

He hurriedly left the bank and drove away, and it did seem 
for awhile as if he had been under some mistake. Not a breath 
of suspicion had ever blown upon the credit of Belford Brothers. 

In this, their hour of trial, they were entitled to all imaginable 
sympathy and business courtesy * and it was lavishly extended to 
them, especially the sympathy, in many and varied expressions 
thereof. 

Still, as the day went by and after William Belford's return, 
a good many people seemed to be in need of money, and those 
who had any right to draw on Belford Brothers " at sight " be- 
gan to do so. 

" We've weathered it, father," said Marvin, at three o'clock. 
" How about to-morrow ?" 

" Well, the funeral won't be till the day after that " 

" John's or the concern's ? I tell you, my boy, there is some- 
thing in the air. That thing will have to come out if we suspend. 

There is one thing we might do " 

" Not with my consent." 

" Never mind, now. I will tliink about it. That would tide 
us over, and we could arrange afterward." 

" Never! And we can weather it just as well without." 

" Don't you be too sanguine. You'd better look in at John's 
with me on our way to town." 

That had been a dark day at the banker's elegant residence. 
Gideon Street had been glad to get away from it in the morning 
on the plea of business necessity. 

He had discovered before going that his affection for his step- 
father had been stronger than he knew, and so the blow fell on 
him the more heavily. 

He had also been astonished at the extreme grief expressed 
by Ruth Faraday, but he had been greatly puzzled by a thing he 
heard her whispering to herself as she leaned above the cold face 
of her uncle: 

' ' 1 know now a part of what he meant. What can the rest 
of it be? This was coming then, and he knew it." 

Gideon had not heard Mrs. Belford say, in the shelter of the 
curtained window: 

"I'm glad my own property is settled on me. William will 
be in control of everything else." 

Nevertheless it was not without some show of reason that 
Gideon had remarked to Ruth before he left the house: 

" I will say just one word. I'm glad there's one person beside 
myself with heart enough to be genuinely sorry." 

" Why, Gideon, I loved him." 

" He loved you, too, and you will know it some day." 

"I'm sure he thought everything of you. But I can't talk 
now. Do you think they will come here right away ?" 

"Of course they will. I don't mean to be here when they 
come." 

Kuth was within a breath of saying, « I wish you would." but 



84 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



she did not say it, and so when William Belford and Marvin 
called to mingle their grief with that of the stricken household 
Gideon was not there. 



CHAPTER III. 

It was the middle of the day before the funeral, and the 
inner parlor of the old banking-house contained only Mr. Will- 
iam Belford and his son. Business went on in the outer office 
in a manner strictly conformed to the needs and proprieties of 
so somber a state oi affairs. 

" Marvin, it's only a loan." 

" I protest!" 

" You have no rights as yet. If you and Ruth were already 
married it would be different. I am my brother's sole execu- 
tor." 

' 6 What of that, father? Ruth is of age. This is her own 
private property. You've no control. I doubt if Uncle John 
would have any right if he were alive." 

' ' It's a deposit, Marvin. I won't break if I can help it." 

The oblong, tape-bound package lay on the table before him, 
and he tore it open with a movement so sudden that Marvin's 
outstretched hand was all too late. 

"What! What is this?" 

"Mere waste paper!" 

" Whose work is this?" 

It was hard to say which face of those two was changing color 
and expression the more rapidly as their eyes glanced from each 
other to the heap of trash on the table. 

" Could Uncle John " 

" No, indeed! Nor old Ruggles. This is worse than the deficit. 
It is utter and everlasting ruin." 
" There is but one other man." 
" Gideon ! Call him in." 

In a moment more Mr. William Belford was sternly pointing 
to the contents of Ruth Faraday's special deposit and demand- 
ing: 

" What does this mean, Mr. Street ?" 
" Rubbish, I should say. Why ?" 
" What do you think about it ?" 
" Nothing at all." 

" Mr. Street, do you know we have found a large deficit in the 
books of this house ?" 
"Perfectly well." 

" And now here is this robbery, evidently committed by some 
one who had access to the vault." 
"It looks very bad, indeed." 

Not a hair of Gideon's yellow beard and mustaches flinched, 
but the latter had a quiver in them as if they were beginning to 
curl a little. 

"Have you any explanation to offer?" thundered the 
banker. 

" Possibly I have. The plundering has been done quite 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



85 



Systematically. I think it has required co-operative labor — say 
of two persons at least." 

" Sir, I will have you arrested!" 

" A scapegoat would certainly be desirable, but I doubt if I am 
the right man. I shall certainly refuse to serve," 
" Leave the room, sir!" 

"I will, and I shall also immediately leave the bank, but not 
the city. I shall not run away, Mr. Belford." 
" Go, sir! go!" 

He went not hastily, nor as one who had fight in his mind. 

" Marvin, this is awful! We can stand it through to-day." 

" To-morrow is the funeral, next day Sunday. We shall not 
open our doors again, father, now those drafts are coming." 

6 ' We can't pay ten shillings in the pound, but well keep 
a-going till three o'clock." 

So they did, but the air was becoming mysteriously filled with 
rumors undefined concerning the stability of the bereaved firm. 
It was surprising how many men were ready to remark: 

" I don't know about it; John was the backbone of the 
house." 

And he was dead, and that very evening his brother was 
compelled to remark to his widow: 
" There will be nothing to divide, Carrie." 
" What, William! Nothing?" 

"Not a penny. There has been a heavy defalcation, heavy 
losses on top of it. Quite a run now, and more coming. The 
house will go into bankruptcy to-morrow." 

" Oh, Mr. Belford," suddenly exclaimed Euth, whose ears had 
lost no word he had been saying, " can I not help you ? There 
are my bonds, take them. Uncle John said he had more than 
doubled the amount left me." 

Mrs. Belford was staring at her brother-in-law in open-eyed 
astonishment, w T hile he on his part seemed struggling with a 
great gasp of some kind, as he turned his head away from the 
tearful generosity in Euth Faraday's face. 

" Your bonds, my dear ? There has been a robbery as well as a 
defalcation. Your fortune is all gone — every penny of it." 

"Eobbery? All gone? Who could have done it ?" 

"It's all a robber v!" all but screamed Mrs. Belford. "Who 
did it ? William, who did it ?" 

" Be calm, Carrie, be calm. It's an awful state of affairs. 
Tell me, did Gideon Street come home to supper ?" 

"Yes, he was here to supper, and he went out again." 

" I doubt if you will see him again very soon. Thank you for 
your kind offer, Euth. It is time for me to go." 

" Do you suspect Gideon ?" 

" I will not say more now." 

"I will, then," said Euth, firmly. "I do not suspect him. 
You must not do anything against him so far as I am con- 
cerned." 

" My dear, generous -hearted girl, things must take their own 
course." 

There was nothing Euth could think of in reply to that, and 



86 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



after Mr. Belford withdrew, she had quite enough to do in sooth* 
ing the now hysterical grief of the bankrupt's widow. Only 
one gleam of common-sense broke through the black cloud of 
all that wifely sorrow. 

' ' Ruth Faraday," she said, "how could you be such a fooh 
If your fortune had been in your own hands you'd have lent it 
to them, and you'd have lost it. It's just as well somebody stole 
it. I'm glad mine's safe, what there is of it. What will become 
of you ?" 

That was a question with which Ruth had not yet begun to 
wrestle, but she saw that it must come, by the light of the flash 
Mrs. Belford let in upon her. 

She said nothing at the moment, but she did a great deal of 
thinking all that evening while she sat alone in the library won- 
dering when Gideon Street would return, and what could keep 
him so late. 

So late? It was very late; and the thought whispered to her 
at last that she would rather not see him when he came in, for 
she would not dare to tell him the dreadful things Mr. William 
Belford had said of him. 

Gideon chose his own hour, but he did return, and he was at the 
breakfast-table next morning. He was all alone, for neither of 
the ladies came down. 

Then he went to his own room, and, some hours later, none 
of those who gathered to join in the solemn ceremonials of the 
occasion perceived, in his behavior or in that of any member 
of the Belford family, a trace of improper feeling, only the un- 
communicative reserve of men and women in affliction. 

Perhaps it was as much Ruth's fault as any one's that Gideon 
Street and not Marvin Belford assisted her to a carriage and took 
a vacant seat beside her. 

All the proprieties were duly observed, but in less than an hour 
after the return from the funeral a couple of gentlaman called 
to see Mr. Street, and he went out with them and did not return 
that day. He did not even leave word where he was going, or 
send back any message to inform his anxious friends why he 
should not come back. 



CHAPTER IV. 

That Saturday night it was well known in the financial com- 
munity that Belford Brothers would never again open their 
doors for business. It was known, too, that there were " some 
particularly nasty features " about the failure. 

Mr. Marvin Belford's own room was, therefore, the most com- 
fortable place for him to be in, and he was there; but he had 
been somewhere else first. 

He had spent an hour with Ruth Faraday just after tea, and 
he was evidently thinking about her now as he sat and stared at 
the small bit of burning sea-coal in the grate before him. 

"I've been too fast with RutV 5 be said, aloud. "She's feel- 
ing awfully cut up just now. I ought to have waited. She'll 
come round, of course, when she wakes up to the facts of the 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



8? 



case. Hasn't a glimmer of an idea what it is to work for a 
living. I shall have to play poor for awhile; but it beats me 
what I'm to do about those things just now. It's a queer secret 
to keep, but I'll keep it. Yes, I will, if I have to keep it for- 
ever I" 

There was something harshly husky in his voice as he uttered 
the last words. He rose and walked slowly to a trunk in a 
corner. 

The door of the room was already locked, so that he was in no 
danger of intrusion, while he drew from the trunk and placed 
upon his table an oblong, tape-bound package, remarking: 

44 I'll see what there is of it." 

In about half a minute more he had seen, and he was stagger- 
ing back from the table with a large white envelope in his hand. 
On the table, released from its careful wrapping, was a heap of 
old letters and other worthless things, and Marvin Belford had 
not yet found a single word to express the feeling of astounded 
disappointment with which he had stripped their mockery bare. 

That one envelope had lain on top, and it was addresed in a 
large, firm hand to " William Belford, Esq." 

" I may as well open it." 

He did so, and the broad sheet of paper he unfolded from it 
bore only these words: 

" We are even now, my dear brother. Let us divide the 
deficit between us. You will not be able to lay your hands upon 
Euth's fortune just now. Affectionately, John Belford." 

"Divide it between them?" gasped Marvin. "I thought as 
much. All I took didn't make the matter really any worse. 
So Uncle John swamped Euth, too, did he? It's rough on me 
just now; but what if she had accepted me? I should have 
been in a box then." 

There was comfort in his misery, therefore, and there was fire 
in the grate, and all that pile of rubbish would burn, including 
Uncle John's letter. 

That was an uncomfortable evening for a great many people, 
but not one of all those who mourned for John Belford, or for 
the failure of the house of which he had been the head, passed 
the long hours more wretchedly than did Mr. Gideon Street. 

There is hardly anything more trying to manly fortitude than 
an arrest on a felonious accusation, locked up over Sunday, 
to sit and eat one's heart out in solitude with a prospect of pos- 
sible years and years of just such locking up in some lonely cell 
or other. 

44 It would be almost as bad to be let out now," said Gideon to 
himself more than once, 44 and have men look at me as they 
will." 

Late in the night, as he lay there in the darkness, other words 
burst from him: 

44 And she! Euth Faraday, to think I am a thief, and that I 
stole from her!" 

It was not exactly a yell of agony, but it was a very good sup- 
pressed likeness of one. 



88 BERLIN SOCIETY. 



He could send for a lawyer even on a Sunday, and he could be 
assured that his arrest was an unwarrantable, hasty proceeding, 
and that the magistrate would surely let him out again on Mon- 
day morning, after a few formalities; but something very 
black had settled over the soul of Gideon Street. He knew as 
as well as if he had been told that the reason of his absence was 
now well understood in the mansion of the Widow Belford. 

What he did not know was that the news had been carried 
there by Marvin Belford, or how much of emphasis it had added 
to the replies made by Euth Faraday to sundry gracefully, even 
passionately, tendered pleadings. 

One night more, a dreadfully dark one, full of tempest out of 
doors, and marked by other tempests in some homes and in such 
dim crypts as they lock up suspected felons in. 

Gideon's man of law was right, nevertheless, and before the 
noon of Monday, he was free to walk past the closed doors of 
the old banking-house. He knew he was stared at by a number 
of men who passed him as he came up the street; but only one 
old acquaintance spoke to him. 

' 6 What's the cause of the failure?" was Gideon's reply; 
" can't say. I'm told the money gave out and they had to close, 
I left them the day before. You will have to ask somebody 
else." 

Ruth Faraday was in her own room that afternoon when a 
servant knocked at the door and told her Mr. Street was in the 
parlor and wished to see her. 

" Tell him I'll come right down." Then she sat down upon a 
trunk she had been packing. " Gideon! I thought he was in 
prison. What shall I say to him ? Guilty ? No, indeed; I don't 
believe a word of it. If I keep him waiting he will think I do." 

He stood in the middle of the parlor when she flashed in, and 
she paused for a moment. He had never before looked so very 
large and strong and noble, only his face was white. 

" Miss Faraday " 

" Gideon, I don't believe it!" 

"But, Miss Faraday, I spent last night, the day before, the 
night before that, in a felon's cell. I am dishonored." 

"You did not do it? You did not take their money or my 

bonds :" 

4 k Their money — the deficit ? — it was gone before I ever entered 
the bank. I did take your bonds, all of them." 
"You did? Gideon!" 

" Yes, I did. Your uncle gave them to me to keep for you. 
I have kept them. Here they are." 

She had seen the valise he was now opening. It had given 
her a swift thought that he was going away, but now he took 
from it a package which he tore open in her presence. 

" Gideon " 

" They are all here, Miss Faraday. I have been true to my 
trust." 

" Don't count them, Gideon, please don't. I would trust you 
with anything. I promised Uncle John I would. Did you sav 
they put you in jail ?" 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



89 



She was close to him now, and looking up in his face, for the 
idea was growing upon her that he had somehow been suffering 
on her account, and the tears were in her eyes and voice. 

6 'Never mind that, Miss Faraday. I can't leave town till the 
investigation is over. I shall go then, but I wanted to put your 
property in your own hands as soon as possible." 

A great storm was shaking him from head to foot, but his 
eye and voice were steady till her answer came: 

" These things ? What can I do with them ? Won't you take 
care of them for me ? Wouldn't they help you to get into busi- 
iness, Gideon ? or half of them ?" 

" Ruth Faraday!" 

"You are not dishonored! You are not disgraced! I don't 
believe a word of it. Won't you, Gideon? Please do!" The 
tears were pouring down her face in a great shower as she looked 
upon the terrible pain in his, and her hands went out to him in 
such a way that he could but take them, they seemed so eager 
to betaken. " I suffered so all yesterday after I knew what 
they had done to you." 

The two pairs of hands — the small ones and the very large 
ones — clung fast to one another for a moment and a beautiful 
light dawned first in Ruth's face and then in Gideon's. 

"Ruth? Is it so? Ruth?" 

"Gideon, I've been finding it out for two weeks, but it must 
have been so before." 

" I found it out a year ago, and it all but killed me. Yester- 
day, all the night long, as I lay there " 

" Gideon! Please do not! It is dreadful!" 

His head had been bending lower and lower for some seconds, 
and he had dropped one of her hands that his arm might be 
free. 

" Oh, Ruth, I can face anybody now. All the world!" 

Too much time could not be spent in the parlor, for it was due 
to Mrs. Belford that the state of affairs should be explained to 
her. 

"I don't understand it at all, Ruth," was the widow's final 
comment. " It's all terrible. And your fortune is safe, andfyou 
are engaged to Mr. Street, and nobody knew a word about it, 
and they put him in jail! It's enough to drive me crazy." 

Ruth had yet another explanation to make that day, and it 
seemed to puzzle very much a pair of brisk-mannered gentlemen 
who called to see her on important business. 

" Do we understand you, Miss Faraday ? You had no property 
in the hands of Belford Brothers ?" 

" Not any, sir. It was all removed some time ago— before the 
death of my uncle. I have not lost anything." 

" But Mr. Street is accused " 

" No, he is not, sir; not by me. I am of full age. He has my 
entire confidence, and he is in entire charge of my business 
affairs." 

"Ah! certainly. Of course. I think we had better go; do 
you not, Mr. Johnson ?" 



90 



BERLIN SOCIETY. 



" Reckon we had. There's an awful leak in this bushiest 
somewhere. 'Tisn't here." 

Ruth Faraday had never in her life before appeared so digni- 
fied and positive as she did while she was bowing out of the 
parlor those two emissaries of law and justice, and there came a 
rustle of silk behind her as she did so. 

u Ruth, dear. I'm so glad Mr. Street saved jour bonds! But 
what will brother William say, and your cousin Marvin?" 

" What will they say ? I never want to see them again. How 
will they dare to look Gideon in the face after what they have 
done ? Arresting him !" 

" Oh, dear me! I had almost forgotten about that. I was think- 
ing of you and Marvin." 

ik Aunt Carrie — Well, you might as well know. I told Marvin 
what I thought of him and his father last night when he told 
me they had put Gideon in jail. He will never trouble me any 
more." 

It was not likely he would know that any vision he might 
have of Ruth would surely confound itself in his mind with an- 
other of Gideon Street. 

Nevertheless, after all was settled, even long afterward, when 
Mrs. Ruth Street and her husband had freely pardoned every- 
body, neither Mr. William Belford nor his son Marvin was able 
to give himself a satisfactory explanation of the tape- bound pack- 
age and the bonds it did not contain. Like the long-hidden de- 
ficit, it remained one of the " mysteries of banking." 



[the end.] 




MRS. ALT1X. MCVEIGH MILLER'S WORKS. 

No. 1. A Dreadful Temptation 20 Cents 

44 2. The Bride of the Tomb 20 44 

" a An Old Man's Darling 20 44 

44 4. Queenie's Terrible Secret 20 44 

44 5. Jaquelina 20 44 

44 6. Little Golden's Daughter „. 20 44 

44 7. The Rose and the Lily e 20 44 

M 8. Countess Vera 20 44 

44 9. Bonnie Dora 20 •* 

44 10. Guy Kenmore's Wife 20 44 

GEORGE ELIOT'S WORKS. 

* 11. Janet's Repentance ...... 10 " 

- 12. Silas Marner , 10 " 

44 13. Felix Holt, the Radical... 20 44 

44 14. The Mill on the Floss 20 * 

44 15. Brother Jacob 10 " 

44 16. AdamBede 20 " 

44 17. Romola 20 44 

44 18. Sad Fortunes of Rev. Amos Barton. 10 c * 

44 19. Daniel Deronda 20 44 

44 20. Middlemarch 20 44 

44 21. Mr. Gilfil's Love Story 10 44 

44 22. The Spanish Gypsy 20 44 

44 23. Impressions of Theophrastus Such 10 44 

MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

44 24. The Two Orphans. ByD'Ennery 10 44 

44 25. Yolande. By William Black 20 44 

44 26. Lady Audley's Secret. By Miss Braddon 20 44 

44 27. When the Ship Comes Home. By Besant & Rice 10 44 

44 28. John Halifax, Gentleman. By Miss Mulock 20 44 1 

44 29. In Peril of his Life By Gaboriau 20 

44 30. The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid .... .10 41 

44 31. Molly Bawn. By the Duchess 20 

44 32. Portia. Ry the Duchess 20 44 

44 33. Kit: a Memory. By James Payne 20 N 

44 34.-East Lynne. By Mrs. Henry Wood 20 44 

44 35. Her Mother's Sin. By Bertha M. Clay 10 44 

44 36. A Princess of Thule. By William Black ,.. 9 20 44 

44 37. Phyllis. By the Duchess 20 44 

" 38. David Copperfield. By Charles Dickens 20 44 

44 39. Very Hard Cash. By Charles Reade 20 44 

44 40. Ivanhoe. By Sir Walter Scott 20 44 

44 41. Shirley. By Miss Bronte ..20 44 

44 42. The Last Days of Pompeii. By Bulwer Lytton ....20 44 

44 43. Charlotte Temple. By Miss Rowson 10 44 

44 44. Dora Thorne. By Bertha M. Clay 20 44 

44 45. Old Curiosity Shop. By Charles Dickens 20 44 

44 46. Camille. By Alex. Dumas, Jr 10 44 

44 47. The Three Guardsmen. By Alex. Dumas 20 44 

44 48. Jane Eyre By Charlotte Bronte , 20 44 

44 49. Romance of a Poor Young Man. ByFeuillet 10 44 

44 50. Back to the Old Home. Bv Mary Cecil Hav 10 44 

I 44 51. Maggie; or, the Loom Girl of Lowell. By William Mason Turner, M. D.20 f 

' 44 52. Two Wedding^ Rings. By Margaret Blount 20 44 

| 44 53. Led Astray. By Helen M. Lewis 20 * 

44 54. A Woman's Atonement. By Adah M. Howard 20 M i 

44 55. False. By Geraldine Fleming, ... 20 44 

44 56. The Curse of Dangerfleld. By Elsie Snow 20 44 

44 57. Ten Years of His Life. By Eva Evergreen 20 ;4) 

44 58. A Woman's Fault. By Evelyn Grav 20 44 

44 59. Twenty Years After. Py Alex. Dumas , 20 44 

44 60. A Queen Amongst Women and Between Two Sins. By Bertha M. Clay.20 44 

44 61. Madolin's Lover. By Bertha M. Clay , .20 " 

44 62. Thaddeus of Warsaw. By Jane Porter 20 M 

44 6a Lucile. By Owen Meredith .20 " 

44 64. Charles Auchester. By E. Berger 20 " 

44 65. A Strange Story. Bv Bulwer ,20 44 

44 66. Aurora Floyd. By Miss Br^d don „■ 20 44 

44 67. Barbara's History. By Amelia B. Edwards 20 44 

44 68. Called to Account. By Annie Thomas. ... 20 : * 

44 69. Old Myddleton's Money. By Mary Cecil Hay ^ 20 44 

44 70. Thorns and Orange Blossoms. By Bertha M. Clay. Complete 10 

Remember that we do not charge extra for postage. Munro's Library will be 
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NORMAN Lr MTJN.RO, PUBLISHER, 

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CONTINUED, 

No. 7L Nicholas Nickleby. By Charles Dickens Scents. 

" 72. Moths; a Novel. By"Ouida" *20 " 

" 73. Gertrude the Governess. By William Mason Turner, M.D ...... "..20 ** 

41 74. Christmas Stories. By Charles Dickens .20 " 

44 75. The Executor. By Mrs. Alexander I. *20 445 

44 76. Annette. By the Author of 44 Camille " .'20 " 

44 77. A Sinless Crime. By Geraldine Fleming ...20 M • 

44 78. A Double Marriage. By Beatrice Collensie ..20 44 

•* 79 The Went worth Mystery. By Watts Phillips ...20 44 

44 80 Leola Dale's Fortune. By Geraldine Fleming 20 44 

44 81 Plot and Counterplot. By the Author of 44 Quadroona" 20 44 

• 82. Fair and False. By Mrs. Dale 20 44 

• 83. Out of the Streets. By Adah M. Howard 20 44 

44 84. Set in Diamonds. By the " Countess " 20 44 

44 85. Who Was the Heir? By Geraldine Fleming 20 » 4 

44 86. Little Golden 20 44 

44 87. Daughters of Eve. By Paul Meritt 20 44 

44 88. The World Between Them. By the 44 Countess" 20 44 

• 4 89. Beauty's Marriage. By Owen Marston 20 44 

44 90. Sundered Hearts. By Adah M. Howard 20 44 

44 91. A Fatal Wooing. By Laura J. Libbey 20 44 

44 92. Only a Girl's Love. By Geraldine Fleming 20 44 

44 93. Not to be Won. By Mrs. Lenox Bell 20 44 

44 94. Merit Versus Money. By Garnett Marnell 20 •* 

44 95. Agatha. By Eva Evergreen 20 44 

44 96. Behind the Silver Veil. By Mrs. Dale 20 44 

44 97. A Passion Flower. By the 44 Countess " 20 44 

44 98. Pauline. By the author of 44 Leonnette's Secret " 20 44 

44 99, Wife or Slave. By the author of 44 Not to be Won " 20 44 

44 100. A Dark Marriage Morn. By Owen Marston 20 44 

44 101. Dregs and Froth. By A. H. Wall ,...20 44 

44 102. For Better for Worse. By Mostyn Durward 20 44 

44 103. What Love Will Do. By Annabel Gray 20 44 

44 104. Lover and Husband. By Owen Marston 20 44 

44 105. As Fate Would Have It. By Evelyn Gray 20 44 

14 106. A Waiting Heart. By Louisa Capsadel 20 44 

14 107. Doubly Wronged. By Adah M. Howard 20 44 

44 108. The Eyrie, and The Mystery of a Young Girl. By Court Howard 20 44 

44 109. Gabrielle. By Louise McCarty 20 

44 110. Sweet as a Rose. By Mostyn Durward 20 44 

CHARLOTTE M. STANLEY'S WORKS. 

44 ill. The Shadow of a Sin 20 44 

4 > 112, A Waif of the Sea 20 44 

44 113. The Huntsford Fortune 20 fc 

44 114. Thfe Secret of a Birth 20 44 

• 4 115c Jessie Deane 20 44 

44 116. A Golden Mask 20 44 

48 117. Accord and Discord 20 44 

44 118. A Death-bed Marriage 20 44 

44 119. Hearts and Gold 20 ** 

MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

44 120. Romance of a Black Veil. By Bertha M. Clay 10 44 

44 121. At the World's Mercy. By F. Warden.. 10 44 

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20 cents. 

NORMAN L. MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 

24 & 26 Vandewater St., N. Y, 



A GREAT FAIL! PAPER. 

o 

We are glad to announce to the readers of Munro's Library, 
that the New York Family Story Paper is spoken of in at 
least five hundred thousand homes in America as "A Great 
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Paper is over half a million (500,000) copies. 

Why has the Family Story Paper taken the place of its com- 
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First. — Because it is in every sense a family paper. 

Second. — Because the continued stories are adapted to the 
readers. 

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Fourth. — Because it contains a number of charming short 
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umns. 

Eighth. — Because it is independent and without advertise- 
ments. 

Ninth. — Because it is pleasing to heads of families. 

Tenth and last. — Because we intended that we should tali . 
the lead, and that we have accomplished. 

The New York Family Story Paper is sold on every news 
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Little Golden 

Is Published Complete in Xumlier 

86 

UMROT LIBRARY, 

Ask your Newsdealer for No. 86 Munro's 
Library, Price SO Cents, 

Her Mother's Sin, 

BY BERTHA M. CLAY. 

Is Published Complete in Number 

35 

MUNRO'S LIBRARY. 

For sale at all news-stands in the United States. 
Price 10 Cents. 



Thorns and Orange Blossoms, 

BY BEETHA M. CLAY, 
Is Published Complete in 'No. 

70 

Price lO Cents. For sale at all news-stands and book-stores. 

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MRS, ALEX. MCVEIGH MILLER'S 

WORKS. 

No. . P ric e. 

1. A Dreadful Temptation £) 

2. The Bride of the Tomb 20 

3. An Old Man's Darling 20 

4. Queenie's Terrible Secret ^0 

5. Jaquelina 



20 



10 
.. 20 
10 



10 



6. Little Golden's Daughter 20 

7. The Rose and the Lily 20 

8. Countess Vera *o 

9. Bonnie Dora 

10. Guy Kenmore's Wif e 

GEORGE ELIOT'S WORKS. 

11. Janet's Repentance 10 

12. Silas Marner £j 

13. Felix Holt, the Radical 20 

14. The Mill on the Floss 20 

15. Brother Jacob J" 

16. Adam Bede £| 

17. Romola f> 

18. Sad Fortunes of Rev. Amos Barton.. . . 10 

19. Daniel Deronda *[J 

•20. Middlemarch 20 

21. Mr. Grlftl's Love Story 

22. The Spanish Gypsy. ................... 

23. Impressions of Theophrastus Such. . 
MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 

24. The Two Orphans. By D'Ennery 10 

25. Yolande. By William Black ...... ... 20 

26. Ladv Audley's Secret, By Miss Brad- 

don w 20 

27. When the Ship Comes Home. By Bes- 

ant & Rice • ■• 

28. John Halifax, Gentleman. By auss 

Mulock ^ 

29. In Peril of his Life. By Gaboriau. . .. 20 

30. The Rpmantic Adventures of a Milk- 

maid. By Thomas Hardy ...10 

31. Molly Bawn. By the " Duchess 20 

32. Portia. By the " Duchess " 20 

33. Kit: a Memory. By J ames Payn.. ... 20 

34. EastLynne. By Mrs. Henry £ood... 20 ; 

35. Her Mother's Sin By Bertha M. Clay. 10 | 

36 A Princess of Thule. By ^ llham Black 20 ! 

37 Phvllis. Bv the "Duchess " 20 

38! David Copperfleld. By Charles Dickens 20 

39. Very Hard Cash. By Charles Reade.. 20 

40. Ivanhoe. ?.x Sir Walter Scott 20 

41. Shirley. By Miss Bronte . ... .......... 20 

42. The Last Days of Pompeii. By Bulwer 

Lytton , 20 

43. Charlotte Tempte. By Miss Rawson. . 10 

44. Dora Thome. By Bertha 31 . Clay .... 20 

45. Old Curiosity Shop. By Charles 

Diekens 20 

46. Camille. Bv Alex. Dumas, Jr 10 

47. The Three Guardsmen. By Alex. 

Dumas 20 

48. Jane Evre. By Charlotte Bronte 20 

49. Romance of a Poor Young Man. By 

Feuillet \ 10 

50. Back to the Old Home. By Mary Cecil 

jlav 

51. Maggie: or,' 'the Loom 'Girl of Lowell. 

Bv William Mason Turner, M. D 20 

52. Two Wedding Rings. By Margaret 



10 



No. Price. 

54. A Woman's Atonement. By Adah M. 

Howard 20 

55. False. By Geraldine Fleming 20 

56. The Curse of Dangerfield. By Elsie 

Snow 20 

57. Ten Years of His Life. By Eva Ever- 

green 20 

58. A Woman's Fault. Bv Evelyn Gray.. 20 

59. Twenty Years After. By Alex. Dumas 20 

60. A Queen Amongst Women, and Be- 
tween Two Sins. By Bertha M. Clay.. 20 

61. Madolin's Lover. By Bertha ta. Clay.. 20 

62. Thaddeus of Warsaw. By Jane Porter 20 

63. Lucile. By Owen Meredith 20 

64. Charles Auchester. By E. Berger 20 

65. A Strange Story. Bv Bulwer 20 

66. Aurora Floyd. By Miss Braddon 20 

67. Barbara's History. By Amelia B. 
Edwards 20 

68. Called to Account. By Annie Thomas 20 

69. Old Myddelton's Money. By Mary 
Cecil Hay 20 

70. Thorns and Orange Blossoms. By 
Bertha M. Clay. Complete 10 

71. Nicholas Xickleby. By Charles Dick- 
ens 20 

72. Moths, a Novel. By "Ouida * 20 

73. Gertrude the Governess. By William 
Mason Turner, M.D... 20 

74. Christmas Stories. By Charles Dick- 
ens 20 

75. The Executor. Bv Mrs. Alexander... 20 

76. Annette. By the Author of " Camille " 20 

77. A Sinless Crime. By Geraldine Flem- 
ing ^ 

78. A Double Marriage. By Beatrice 
Collensie 20 

79. The Wentworth Mystery. By Watts 
Phillips 20 

80. Leola Dale's Fortune. By Geraldine 
Fleming 20 

81. Plot and Counterplot. By the Author 
of "Quadroona" 20 

82. Fair and False. By Mrs. Dale 20 

83. Out of the Streets. By Adah M. 
Howard 20 

84. Set in Diamonds. By the " Countess" 20 

85. Who was the Heir ? By Geraldine 
Fleming 20 

86. Little Golden • 20 

87. Daughters of Eve. By Paul Meritt . .... 20 

88. The World Between Them. By the 
"Countess " 20 

89. Beautv'sMarrkige. By Owen Marston 20 

90. Sundered Hearts. By Adah M. How- 
ard 20 

91. A Fatal Wooing. By Laura J. Libbey. 20 

92. Onlv a Girl's Love. By Geraldine 
Fleming v.**,:" £X 

93. Not to be Won. By Mrs. Lenox Bell. . 2u 

94. Merit Versus Money. By Garnett 
Marnell fO 

95. Agatha. By Eva Evergreen. .. . . . . . . . 20 

96. Behind the Silver Veil. By Mrs. Dale. 20 

97. A Passion Flower. By the 44 Countess" 20 

98. Pauline. By the Author of " Leon- 
nette's Secret 20 

99. Wife or Slave. By the Author of 
"Not to be Won" 20 

100. A Dark Marriage Morn. By Owen 
Marston 



20 



! 



Blount . . , 

53. Led Astray. By Helen M. Lewis 20 I 

Remember that we do not charge extra for postage. Monro's Library will be sent 
to any Sart of the world, single numbers for 10 cents, double numbers for 20 cents. 

NORMAN L. MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 

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i h in?-m 



